Light in a World of Darkness
by LardBucket
Summary: Warning: Spoilers ; Naruto's life has been a living, isolated hell... at least HE thinks so. Turns out there's more people in his life than he had assumed. Might be rated M again in the future, but for now, it's gonna be rated T.
1. The Sealing of the Kyuubi

This is my first fanfic ever!

Please read and review! Reviews and critiques are MUCH appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If that wasn't obvious enough...

* * *

"Yondaime-sama", the panting ninja said quickly, between large gasps for air. The Hokage looked at the man, with a sense of dread flooding through him. The messenger ninja collapsed into one of the many chairs in the hospital room.

"The… the Kyuubi has managed to reach… the outskirts of the forest just beyond the village."

Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, stomped his foot on the ground in frustration.

"Already? I assumed you could have at least stalled until the reinforcements from Suna had arrived…"

"Yondaime-sama… unless we find some way, the Kyuubi will reach the village within the hour …" The messenger nin shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

The Hokage bit his lip, considering his options.

"Go back onto the field", the Hokage began, and then hesitated, as if he was deep in thought and trying to come up with a solution to a hard problem.

After a moment of thought, he looked up again, making eye contact with the ninja; a fiery determination in his cool, sapphire eyes. "…and tell them that the Yondaime is on his way."

"Aye, sir." The messenger said, quickly jumping into a salute. He then made some quick hand seals, and he shushined out of the area. Minato looked over, a little sadly, at his wife, Kushina, who was just through childbirth and was cradling their newborn son, Naruto.

"_Hokage-sama, can we speak to you?" the medic nin asked softly._

_The Yondaime looked at him, his head tilted slightly, showing clearly his confusion. After a small pause, the medic nin continued "…outside?", gesturing to the hallways right outside of the room._

_In the hallways, the medic nin turned slightly. After making sure that no one was listening, they made eye contact._

_"It isn't likely she's going to survive childbirth." The medic nin spoke in a soft and gentle, yet careful voice, as if he was afraid that the wrong usage of words; that even the wrong tone could cause the Yondaime to go berserk on his ass._

_The Yondaime froze. To him, suddenly everything seemed to go in slow motion. Minato, lost in his thoughts, stopped paying attention to the outside world. He tried to act strong, brave, like a shinobi should. He tried to act as if it was a minor blow he would get over. But he couldn't. The medic nin, understanding, put his hand on the Yondaime's shoulder comfortingly. Minato sat his shaking body down, and he sobbed gently._

Minato walked slowly over to her side, and gently pried Naruto, their son, away from Kushina, whose eyes widened in realization.

"Don't tell me you're going to use _that_…" she muttered, her green eyes suddenly looking worried.

"There's no other way." Minato stated firmly. Kushina's emotions suddenly took a turn for the worse as her fears were confirmed.

"There has to be another way…", Kushina said, almost pleading for him and Naruto to stay with her.

Minato shook his head. He gazed longingly at her, as if his only desire would be just to stay with her at the time. But as he looked in the doorway, he saw shinobi loyal to Konoha being dragged about in stretchers and wheelchairs, and he remembered his duty to the village as the Yondaime, the Hokage.

He gave his wife an apologetic look, and then he looked downwards, and he shushined away.

On the battlefield, an immense, pure evil, red chakra was being emitted. The force was tremendous. The killer intent being shot out from the being in the middle, the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox, was enough to make most people piss their pants.

But Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime, was not like most people. Determined, he leapt forward through the forest, landing on thick branch after another. When he finally reached the center of the forest, where the Kyuubi had reached after creating a giant, blazing trail of fire and destruction, the Yondaime quickly got out a bunch of scrolls which each had intricately made seals, and placed his child in the center.

Calling out to his subordinates, he shouted, "Can you at least stall it for a couple minutes?" The remaining forces of Konoha, looked backwards, seeing the Yondaime preparing something, nodded, and continued the fight with increased vigor, hope evident in every attempt they made to stop the Kyuubi.

Finally, after the preparations were completed, the Hokage stepped back to look over his work. He bit his thumb hard enough to make it bleed, made a couple of hand seals, and smashed an open palm on the ground, yelling _"SUMMONING JUTSU!"_

Smoke erupted, and once it cleared, there was Gamabunta, king of the frogs, and on top of his head, was Minato.

"Hey there, Gamabunta." Minato greeted, his face giving off his trademark grin.

"Woow…", Gamabunta groaned, looking at the Kyuubi with disgust. "You sure do know how to find trouble, don't you."

"Anyways, I called you here because I need your help. Could you try and hold him still for about 15 seconds?"

"Sure thing, _boss_."

Latching onto the Kyuubi, Gamabunta pinned it down. But it was clear that he was barely doing so; and that at any moment, the fox could break free. Not wasting any moments, Minato launched forward, made a string of hand seals, and put his hands on the forehead of the beast, and yelled.

_SEALING JUTSU!_

A giant flash of light quickly engulfed the battlefield, and then dissipated just as quickly. Suddenly, the shinobi of Konoha realized. The Kyuubi was gone!

They began to cheer in triumph and victory, praising the gods above that they had the Hokage.

The Yondaime ambled weakly over to his child, who was starting to cry in pain as his soul was suddenly merged with the Kyuubi's. The Yondaime knew his time was up. This was the end for him. But at least he had succeeded as Yondaime. He had saved the village.

Tears came to his eyes as he gazed at his son. How Naruto resembled him. Bright blue eyes like the ocean. Shockingly blonde hair. His trademark grin plastered over his son's face. The tears began to fall uncontrollably as Minato realized he would never be there to see his son grow up. That he wouldn't be there when his son became a genin, or when he became a chuunin or a jounin. He wouldn't be there to see if his son ever became Hokage, or surpassed him. He wouldn't be there on his wedding day; or to wipe away the tears off his face when he was down, or to praise him when he did something admirable.

"I love you… my son…" the Yondaime muttered. The Sandaime had come over, and was holding the Yondaime up, giving him physical support. The Yondaime said softly, "I want my son to be treated like a hero, for being the one who contains the Kyuubi. For being the one who was and will always be the one who was strong enough to suppress the Kyuubi within him."

The Sandaime nodded solemnly, tears coming to his own eyes.

The Yondaime suddenly lurched forward, slumped down, and fell on the ground. The Sandaime began to cry, regretting that he himself wasn't the one to seal the monster. And the baby, Naruto, suddenly realizing the graveness of the situation, gave an earsplitting cry that could be heard all over Konoha.


	2. Injustice

This is my first fanfic ever!

Please read and review! Reviews and critiques are MUCH appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If that wasn't obvious enough...

* * *

Kurenai Yuuhi's gaze lifted from her cup of tea, her eyes red as the Sharingan itself. Kurenai adjusted her chuunin vest, which was being worn over her traditional dress made out of bandages.

"I kinda wish that the dango restaurant wasn't closed today…", Anko Mitarashi said, sighing in disappointment. Kurenai looked at her best friend, who was sitting on the stool to her right.

"Dango, dango, dango." Asuma Sarutobi said, chuckling, from the other side of the table. He sat back on his stool, grinning as he took out a cigarette and a lighter. "Don't you eat anything else? It's like you're addicted. That kind of scares me sometimes…"

"Aww, you're so sweet. Hey – you're one to talk. Who's the person who smokes cigarettes 24/7 because of his addiction to nicotine, eh?" Anko said, grinning from ear to ear as Asuma scowled darkly. Anko made a face, and stuck her tongue out.

Asuma was about to lash back, and Kurenai was about to intervene and perhaps scold them for acting like academy students, when a scream of sheer terror erupted from outside the store. A boy no older than 4 years old was running past the restaurant. An enraged group of civilians and shinobi were chasing him, various weapons in their hands, some of said weapons looking so scary that people would shudder to think how they were used.

The trio looked, slightly confused, as the boy exerted as much force into running as was humanly possible by his aching muscles. Suddenly, the boy's foot went off balance as it hit a banana peel carelessly left on the ground.

The three chuunins winced as the mob jumped upon and attacked the boy like a pack of wolves hunting a deer. Asuma, Kurenai, and Anko were shocked when they realized that none of the civilians in the restaurant or on the street were even paying the kid any attention, let alone helping.

Anko's fists were clenched, fingernails digging deep into the palm of her hand as she heard what insults the mob was spewing. Her fists were trembling, turning white with the force she was subconsciously applying.

"Demon brat! This is what you fucking deserve!"

"You killed my husband and my eldest son! This is revenge!"

"You don't deserve to live, you son of a bitch!"

_Anko was sitting on the ground, sobbing as rocks were thrown at her and citizens swung at her with baseball bats, pieces of wood; anything that they could reach._

"_Snake bitch!"_

"_Whore!"_

"_Your master killed my father and took my brother! This is my revenge!"_

"_You'd have to be a fucking MORON to trust Orochimaru, slut!"_

They watched in horror as the boy's face became matted with blood as blows rained down. Kunai knives plunged deep into his flesh. Baseball bats smashing across his cheeks, causing his face to become covered with cuts and bruises, turning his face into a mess of purple and red, black and blue. Punches and kicks aimed at his torso, causing him to cough and vomit blood.

Asuma drew his trench knives; chakra quickly creating a blade of pure blue chakra around the actual metallic blade. He growled at the injustice, and he and Anko quickly leapt from the restaurant, and moved in between the mob and the child, who was sporting multiple stab wounds, and bruises and cuts all over and was sobbing gently.. Kurenai, not one to quickly anger at things, followed suit calmly.

"Aah. Kurenai.", one of the civilians said loudly, emitting an aura of pure drunkenness, while he sauntered up to the front of the mob. "Y'know, the Kyuubi killed your parents too, if I remember correctly." He smirked. "Why don't you join u-…"

The man was immediately silenced with a fist to the face, courtesy of Anko, who was now shaking with rage.

"Why are you defending the demon? Don't you realize? He's the one who attacked the village years ago? He killed countless shinobi, and even the Yondaime.", another man shouted.

"He may take that form, but he's still a fucking demon! He KILLED my family!" a third person yelled, lunging at the boy with a pitchfork.

Asuma parried the attack, and promptly sliced the man in the stomach with one of his chakra blades. He emitted a vengeful wave of killing intent, causing the front lines of the mob to take a surprised step backwards.

Kurenai made a couple of hand signs, and placed the mob under a simple sleep genjutsu. It was effective against the civilians, but the shinobi were easily able to defend themselves.

Suddenly, with a nod from the leader of the mob, the shinobi bent on revenge charged, kunais in hand.

Anko released some snakes from her hands using her summoning contract, and they slithered towards the shinobi. They bit down on legs and arms, and since they were poisonous, a bunch of the attackers died slowly and agonizingly. Using a fluid style of taijutsu, she was able to knock out multiple other mob members.

Kurenai made more hand signs, and then yelled _"BINDING TREE ILLUSION!"_

Some of the shinobi were suddenly immobilized by the illusion of a tree sprouting and wrapping around their limbs, and Kurenai promptly slit their throats.

Asuma's chakra blades easily sliced through the weapons of his opponents. With a little effort, he was able to incapacitate the rest of the opponents.

The three of them cautiously approached the boy. He bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Yondaime. He had messy blonde hair, and he had cool, blue sapphire eyes. The boy slowly inched away from them, his eyes becoming wider and wider as they came closer.

Kurenai's motherly instincts kicked in, and she picked up the boy, and pat his back, trying to sooth him. But he was struggling, and kicking around, constantly trying to scream.

"No… no… don't hurt me… please don't!"

The three sported angry looks on their faces as they realized how many times someone had to have been beaten in order for them to not trust people to that degree anymore.

"Don't worry, we're not here to hurt you." Anko said with a forced smile. The boy stopped struggling and looked at the three of them, eyes wide.

"In any case, I'll get the Hokage." Asuma muttered bitterly. "You two get this kid to the hospital. He looks awful." The two kunoichis nodded in agreement, and the three of them left the scene.

…

"… and so you say you beat the mob and came here and here we are now?" the Sandaime asked, a little sadly, as he paced the tiled floor of the hospital room.

"Absolutely, Hokage-sama.", the three said in unison.

"Is that all? If so, you may leave now. Rest assured, he is in safe hands. I thank you for your selfless effort and…", the Sandaime said.

"Wait." Kurenai interrupted.

Slightly surprised, the Sandaime looked up, a little confused. "What is it?"

"While they were attacking him… they constantly referred to him as a … demon? Why is that?", Kurenai asked.

"Oho! Why is it that you want to know this? Has the famed Ice Queen of Konoha melted at last?", the Sandaime said, with a chuckle. Anko and Asuma laughed at Kurenai's expense, who was now starting to blush furiously.

"N-n-no! I'm just curious – that's all!" she reassured them.

The Sandaime's mood suddenly turned a little bit more serious.

"What do you 3 know about the Kyuubi?" He asked, seriously.

"Well, it was the Nine-Tailed fox… and it attacked Konoha, and the Yondaime killed it and sacrificed himself for the village?" Kurenai asked, a little confused.

"Why does this have anything to do with the boy?" Anko asked, thoroughly confused.

"That's a common misconception, unfortunately." The Sandaime said darkly. "The Bijuu, the Tailed Beasts, are demons, giant masses of evil chakra. It is physically impossible for any mortal to destroy one."

"Does that mean that the boy we saved is…" Asuma started, slightly taken aback.

"No. The boy, Naruto, is NOT the Nine-Tailed Fox." The Sandaime interrupted, a bit harshly. "Rather, the Yondaime was forced to seal the Kyuubi into a being. And seeing as any normal object was too weak to handle the Kyuubi, he was forced to choose a human."

Realization started to dawn on the 3 chuunins, who started to widen their eyes in shock.

"No, not any human wouldn't do." The Sandaime continued, a grave look in his eyes. "The human had to be a newborn, seeing as the chakra coils within his or her body had to be incomplete – not fully mature, for it to work."

The cigarette in Asuma's mouth dropped onto the ground. The flame on the end immediately died.

"B-b-but why would they attack the kid… I mean Naruto… if he's just a kid… and not the Kyuubi itself?" Kurenai asked, shaking a little bit in discomfort.

"Since the Kyuubi is sealed within Naruto, if Naruto dies, so does the Kyuubi." The Sandaime responded concisely.

"But he's just a child…"

"How could they be so cruel…"

"Even if he is the container – there's a difference between the jail and the jailed…"

The Sandaime chuckled, his mood lightening up considerably.

"I'm glad you 3 feel that way. Unfortunately, many people lost family in the attack and were hurt deeply and personally. And seeing as the Kyuubi isn't right here, Naruto seems to be like its representative."

The 3 chuunins were about to continue ranting and protesting about unfairness, when the Sandaime raised his hands.

"That's enough. The story of Naruto being the container of the Kyuubi is strictly an S class secret, and if any of you mention this to anyone, I might have to execute you. Go along now." The Sandaime said. "I'm extremely grateful that you 3 came to Naruto's aid, but there's no longer any further need for your work. Good job. Consider this a mission successful."

And without another word, the Sandaime pushed them gently out of the hospital room door and closed it with a slight slam.

'_I'm sorry, Minato'_ the Sandaime thought sadly, facing the child, who was peering at him curiously. _'I failed you.'_


	3. Surprise Reunion

This is my first fanfic ever!

Please read and review! Reviews and critiques are MUCH appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If that wasn't obvious enough...

* * *

This was supposedly one of the happiest days of the year, for the citizens of Konoha. The cracks and bangs of firecrackers exploding quickly filled the village. The excited chatter and parties that the people threw kept spirits high.

Parents walked about with their toddlers strapped to their backs, with children following them, grins filling their faces as they took big chunks out of the various treats they held in their hands.

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, sat atop the Hokage Tower, where he worked. He gazed downwards upon the village, watching with amusement, but a sense of sadness deep within.

It was October tenth. 6 years ago, on this exact day, the Kyuubi had struck, but for the last time. This day not only honored the defeat of the Kyuubi, but the sacrifice of Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage.

The night sky was dark, almost ominous. The stars shown brightly in a stark contrast to the darkness around them. Carved upon the mountainside surrounding Konoha, were the faces of all of the Hokages. This was their monument – a testament to their powerful rule that kept Konoha going in times of trouble. They were the saviors of the village.

Despite the combined efforts of the Hokages to make everyone as content as they possibly could, however, there was still a lone child, aging only 6 years old, perched atop the monument, with tears in his eyes as he too, like the Sandaime, watched the processions below from above.

His name, was Uzumaki Naruto. He wanted so badly to join the happiness, below, but he knew, alas, that was not to be. The beatings and the shunning he received throughout the year was bad enough. But it was on this day, his **birthday**, for god's sake, that everything got worse.

It was always the same. He would get his annual beating within an inch of his life after the festival. Afterwards, early in the morning, drunk civilians and shinobi would go over to his rundown apartment, break in, steal his possessions and then burn the place down.

And there was nothing anyone could do about this. Not like any of the citizens even cared to try and stop it, anyway. The ANBU Black Ops, who were allegedly assigned to Naruto as his guardians could never reach him nor his apartment in time to save both.

Naruto sighed deeply, obviously discontent, waiting for the mob to find him so he could get this day done and over with. In slight boredom, he hummed the tune 'Happy Birthday' to himself, trying to find some light in the situation.

Suddenly, he felt a presence near him. Naruto closed his blue eyes sadly, and he tensed up, awaiting the pain.

But none came. After minutes of just sitting there and bracing himself for what was not to come, he slowly opened his eyes.

There, staring at him with surprised, crimson eyes, was a woman. She was wearing a cute outfit that looked as though she was coming from a date. Her facial expression showed that she was surprised. She froze; she was just about to take a munch out of the bun that she had in one of her hands.

Naruto had this weird feeling as if he recognized her, but he couldn't quite remember where or how. The fact that she didn't appear drunk, the fact that she didn't appear to be carrying with her any weapons, the fact that she seemed surprised that he was there and didn't make a move, or a sound, made Naruto feel as though she was safe.

But 6 years of constant beatings, betrayals and shunning takes a toll on who and what you trust. He inched away slowly, knowing that anyone could be easily be tricking him into false trust – many had done so already; such as a man named Uchiha Itachi.

_"Naruto, come here for a second.", the Sandaime said with a big grin on his face. Happiness was contagious. Naruto grinned back at him, and went with the old man._

"_I've assigned this boy, Itachi, to watch over you and keep you safe."_

_Naruto looked to the Hokage's right, and saw a boy with distinctive lines coming from the top of his nose to the middle of his cheeks. He had a sense of superiority coming from him, but he too was grinning. His eyes were closed, and his head was tilted._

_The 5 year old grinned. In his mind, he was dancing with glee. Another friend; another person he could trust! Another person who didn't call him demon or insult him and attempt to kill him._

…_(time skip) ..._

_Naruto and Itachi got along well. They were in the middle of a sandbox. Naruto was building a sandcastle, but since he had no prior experience, it just ended up being a big lump of sand._

"_Itachi, why don't you play with your brother Sasuke at all?", Naruto asked, eyes squinting as he tried to figure out a reason._

"_You see, my brother is quite annoying." Itachi answered with a smirk. "He's always trying to beat me – it's like I can't understand him anymore."_

_Naruto pondered for a moment, and then nodded in acknowledgement._

"_I guess I understand. Do you hate him?"_

_Itachi paused for a moment._

"_No. I don't. We're family, after all! Big brothers are always supposed to be there for each other… just like friends – friends like you and I." Itachi said, smiling genuinely._

_Naruto smiled back at him. He felt safe and content under Itachi's care._

… _(time skip) …_

_It was raining heavily. Naruto sat on his bed patiently, but with a little bit of restlessness. He couldn't wait until Itachi arrived. But he couldn't help but feel a little bit depressed as he watched the rain outside._

_There was a knock on the door of his apartment. Naruto leapt forward with a yelp of happiness, and quickly threw open the door._

_There in the door, was a panting Itachi. His head was hung, and he was breathing deeply. He looked up, making eye contact with Naruto. Naruto took a step back in surprise._

_Itachi's eyes were red, with little symbols inside that Naruto couldn't understand, and Itachi was emitting a slight bit of killer intent._

"_Itachi-kun, why are your eyes re-…" Naruto tried to say, but he was cut off._

_MANGEKYO SHARINGAN!_

_Suddenly the whole world turned red and ominous as Naruto was suddenly inside the middle of the Uchiha compound, which Naruto recognized as he was there a couple times before. Itachi came out of the shadows. He looked on with an emotionless face. He drew a blade, and threw multiple kunai in Naruto's direction. Naruto cringed, waiting to get hit, but the kunai passed through him, as if he was a ghost. Naruto spun around to see where the kunai had gone, and saw as some of the Uchiha clan members were suddenly struck in the throat and in vital organs by the thrown kunais._

_Naruto watched in pure terror and agony as he saw Uchiha member after Uchiha member getting slaughtered by their own prodigy, Itachi. He tried to close his eyes, but his ears were still vulnerable to the screams of the dying._

_Suddenly he was transported back into reality. Itachi had pinned Naruto to the wall. A flare of killing intent made Naruto gulp in fear._

_Itachi drew his blade, and slammed it straight into the stomach of Naruto, making Naruto vomit blood. Itachi withdrew his blade, sighed, gave Naruto an apologetic look, and then ran off into the rain, leaving Naruto twitching in pain as he blacked out._

_Naruto later woke up, seeing white all around him. It was nearly blinding._

_He moaned and rubbed his eyes. He looked down at his torso, which was covered in bandages. From the hall, he could hear the Sandaime and someone talking._

"_I'm glad you came to his rescue again, Kurenai. Just in the nick of time, too – the doctors said that if he had lost any more blood, he probably would have died."_

_Naruto recognized this voice as the old man._

"_I'm sure any shinobi would have done the same in my position.", a feminine voice replied quietly. Naruto wasn't sure why, but the voice seemed familiar to him…_

"Kurenai, what's with the -…", another man had walked up behind the woman, and suddenly stopped in his tracks. The man seemed remarkably familiar as well. The newcomer started playing with his beard as he took out his cigarette and blew rings of smoke.

"Asuma… is this…?" the woman stared at Naruto, looking at him with a look of recognition. The voice rang inside Naruto's head. He suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu.

"Naruto?", the man said, with a slightly gruff voice. Naruto turned slightly at the sound of his name. They didn't _seem_ like enemies, but then again, neither did Itachi… right?

The woman's facial expression changed from recognition to shock, as she realized what day it was. She looked down at the bun she had in her hand, untouched, that she was about to take a bite out of. She walked slowly up to Naruto, who was inching backwards in fear.

Kurenai kneeled down, and put out her hand, as if giving Naruto the bun. Naruto stared at her in shock. He was trembling as he accepted the bun. The woman smiled, and cheerily said, "Happy Birthday, Naruto!"

Naruto gazed at the bun in wonder and appreciation as the two people grinned and walked away in merriment back to the festival.

"…happy… birthday…?", he said in amazement. No one had ever said that phrase to him.


	4. The Beginnings of a Shinobi

This is my first fanfic ever!

Please read and review! Reviews and critiques are MUCH appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If that wasn't obvious enough...

I'll do my best to update the story as quickly as possible. The last couple days have been hectic for me – family friends, parties, etc etc.

Happy new year to you all, by the way. Belated Merry Christmas?

* * *

"Alright class!", Iruka shouted loudly, getting the attention of all of the kids in the class on the spot. "Today will be your official genin examination!"

Looks of uneasiness and nervousness could be found on the faces of students throughout the entire room.

"Don't worry!", Mizuki reassured, playing around with strands of his long, white hair. "For the entire year we've been preparing you guys for this huge day!"

"If you pass this examination, you become official ninja! Guardians of this village we know as Konoha!" Iruka said, beaming.

Murmurs of excitement erupted through the classroom at the latest news.

"The test is rather simple, really." Mizuki explained. "We'll be testing you on some of the topics we've covered thus so far. First, you just have to perform a simple _henge_ jutsu. You'll have to transform into one of us to get full credit for that part of the test."

Naruto let out a short groan, hearing this.

_"Naruto.", Iruka said, slightly concerned. "You know for the exam, you have to be able to pull one of these off… don't you?"_

_"Yeah Iruka-sensei! Don't worry! I got this down!", Naruto exclaimed, with a short nod._

_Smiling, Iruka looked at him. "You know, Naruto… if you can perform one of these flawlessly, I'll treat you to Ichiraku Ramen tonight! How does that sound?"_

_Naruto grinned back at him, smiling from ear to ear._

"_Ramen?! No way am I passing that up! I'll complete this so fast that if you blink you'll miss it!"_

_Iruka smiled, and then shrugged. Iruka said, "Well then, show me what you got!"_

_Forming a tiger seal, Naruto shouted "TRANSFORM!", while simultaneously channeling some of his enormous amount of chakra into his hands._

_A large burst of smoke consumed Naruto, and when it cleared, in the middle, replacing him, was a near flawless replica of Iruka. Emphasis on near flawless. The copy had huge, red, puffy lips. It was almost scary how fast Iruka backed away from Naruto._

_Slapping his forehead with his hand, Iruka groaned. This was going to be a long afternoon._

"After that, you'll just have to perform a bunshin no jutsu!" Mizuki continued.

Another moan escaped from Naruto's lips.

Iruka looked at the ground. Laying at his feet was a sickly looking Naruto. Naruto's face was white, and was trembling horribly. It was truly a pitiful sight. Looking slightly disgusted, Iruka drew a kunai knife from one of the pockets on his chuunin vest, and threw it right at the deathly Naruto on the ground, which disappeared in a poof of smoke.

"_Naruto… we've been going at this for hours, with no success! I told you it's your chakra control! You can't create a clone successfully unless you just listen to me and work on controlling your chak-…"_

"_Iruka-sensei! I swear I'm almost there! Just you wait! I'll have this down in a couple more tries – that's all!", Naruto protested._

_Slapping his forehead with his hand, Iruka groaned. This was going to be a long afternoon._

"Next, you'll have to prove your accuracy when it comes to fighting with ranged weapons."

"_Damn it, Naruto! I told you to hit the target!", shouted Iruka angrily, wincing as he pulled a kunai knife out of his arm._

_Naruto grinned at him. "Sorry sensei! I just need more practice, that's all."_

_Iruka glared at him. "Why can't you hit the target as well as you hit me? If it really helps, try aiming at me. Maybe that'll make you hit the target."_

"_Sure thing, sensei!" Naruto said quickly, pulling more kunai out of his pouch._

_Seconds later, a piercing scream of agony filled the air._

"_DAMN IT, NARUTO!"_

_Iruka had a hell of a time pulling kunais out of parts of his body, cursing in his mind words inappropriate to say out loud with each one. He wrapped his deep wounds with strips of bandages._

"_Sorry sensei!", Naruto said, giving an apologetic look. "I just need more time to get used to these kunai!"_

_Slapping his forehead with his hand, Iruka groaned. This was going to be a long afternoon._

"When we call your name, just follow us into this room." Iruka said, gesturing at a doorway near him. "This is where we'll be administrating your test. We'll be testing you guys one at a time, so you can concentrate to the fullest."

With that, he and Mizuki disappeared into the room, but not before calling out, "Inuzuka, Kiba!"

"Hai, sensei!", shouted an energetic boy with brown disheveled hair. He leapt from his desk and ran towards the senseis in long leaps, punching the air and shouting, "Come on Akamaru! Let's show them what we've got!". His statement was followed by an audible growl of agreement from somewhere inside the boy's large gray sweatshirt, that sounded almost suspiciously like a dog.

Naruto sat at his desk in despair, dreading the moment that he had to make a fool out of himself.

"Yeesh… how troublesome…", a voice to Naruto's left muttered. Naruto turned slightly to see the source of said voice. He saw a boy sitting rather comfortably, his entire posture screaming laziness. He had short black hair, and was wearing a thin, grey shirt and blue shorts. He was staring up at the clouds, with an empty yet carefree look on his face.

Naruto stared at the boy for a while, before staring back at the front of the classroom, immersed in his own troubles. The boy looked over at Naruto, and noticed an aura of nervousness and sadness coming from the normally upbeat child.

"Hey… are you alright?"

Naruto froze, and then turned back to the other boy, who was looking at him… slightly concerned? Naruto frowned a little bit, thinking deeply. Then, he paused, and gave off a slightly fake, slightly genuine smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine! It's just these exams… they're…", Naruto thought for a moment, before continuing with a smirk. "…such a drag."

The boy smirked back at him, before extending his hand. Naruto looked at the boy, and at the outstretched hand in surprise.

"Nara Shikamaru." The boy said, nodding to Naruto. Naruto smiled, and then loudly replied, "Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage!"

Friend. What an interesting word. And this was the first friend that Naruto had made at the Academy. All his other attempts at making them had failed, pretty miserably.

_Naruto approached a lone boy sitting motionless on a swing set. Judging by his black, chicken butt like hairdo, and by the way the fangirls off in the distance were staring at him with hearts in their eyes, Naruto could tell this was the famed Sasuke Uchiha, lone survivor of the Uchiha clan._

_The boy was alone. Naruto recalled a conversation he had previously with the old man…_

_(enter memory)_

"_Hey, who's that kid?" Naruto asked curiously, pointing out of the abnormally large window of the Hokage Tower at Sasuke, who had his back turned to them._

"_That's one of the Uchiha.", the Hokage said. "Sasuke, if I recall."_

"_Why does he look so depressed?", Naruto asked, saddened by the word 'Uchiha', which reminded him of his old friend Itachi._

"_His entire clan was massacred recently. By one of them." The Hokage said slowly, realizing Itachi's connection with Naruto, who promptly burst into tears at the mention of his previous friend._

_(end memory)_

"_Hey… Sasuke!", Naruto grinned, running towards the boy, who was looking at him, with a grateful look at it wasn't one of his fangirls. They were already slightly familiar with each other – Naruto had visited the Uchiha compound at times by invitation of Itachi._

"_Friends?", Naruto asked hopefully, extending his own hand. Sasuke looked gleeful, and started to extend his hand as though accepting Naruto's offer, when all of a sudden a fist smashed into Naruto's jaw, leaving him sprawled on the floor, rubbing his head where it hurt._

"_Stupid baka! Naruto! Sasuke's too cool for you!" a girl screamed at him. Sasuke sighed discontently, looking off in the distance after flashing Naruto an apologetic glance. Naruto stared at the ground sadly._

"_Get away from here! Sasuke is gonna be MY best friend from here on out!" she screamed possessively standing in front of him not unlike a bodyguard._

_Naruto sighed, and walked away from the scene, sulking. His eyes were filling with tears quickly, and it was too much to hold in. As the first teardrops dropped onto the ground, Naruto ran off in the distance. Sasuke stared after him sadly, ignoring the yelps of happiness from the girl who had 'protected' him from the demon._

The two new friends were chattering away happily when their conversation was brutally interrupted by the call of, "Uzumaki Naruto!" from Iruka.

"Hai, Iruka-sensei!", Naruto called quickly, and ran off with the test examiners.

It was an old, dilapidated room, that they led Naruto to, as clearly stated by the multiple cracks on each of the walls, as well as the peeling paint and holes in the ceiling.

Iruka and Mizuki were leaning against the back wall, staring at him intently, clipboards and writing utensils in hand.

"So, Naruto." Iruka said to him. "Show us your henge no jutsu."

"You got it, sensei!" Naruto shouted confidently, before making the tiger seal. In his mind, he was thinking, _'Come on Naruto… you've failed the last couple graduation exams… but this time you're going to pass! Believe it! Hokages don't fail their Academy graduation exam! Just channel chakra to your hands and…"_

"TRANSFORM!"

There was a large explosion of smoke, covering Naruto. When the smoke cleared, Iruka was beaming. Mizuki gave off a false smile, but inside he was seething with disappointment.

There was a perfect clone of Iruka standing where Naruto was just standing. Another burst of smoke covered Naruto, and Naruto reemerged as himself.

"Nice job, Naruto! You passed the first stage!", Iruka smiled genuinely. Naruto beamed back at him.

"Don't get so cocky.", Mizuki seethed. Iruka raised an eyebrow. "Let's continue. Naruto, if you please, your bunshin no jutsu?"

Naruto smirked, again with the confidence. But inside, he was trembling nervously. _'Wait, shit. Is it Tiger-Boar-Dog-Ox?'_ Naruto thought, trying to remember the order of the hand seals. _'Maybe it's Tiger-Ox-Boar-Dog? Or maybe it's Tiger-Boar-Dog-Ox? Aargh! I can't rememb-'_

"Any day now would be nice.", Mizuki interrupted Naruto's thoughts, slightly annoyed.

'_I'll just have to take a chance, now…'_ Naruto thought grimly, before making hand seals.

Tiger-Boar-Ox-Dog!

"BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

There was a poof of smoke directly to the right of Naruto. When the smoke dissipated, there was the dead-looking Naruto on the ground. It was drooling, and its hair was wilting.

It was dispelled by a kunai flung by a disappointed Iruka.

"Naruto, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to fail you."

Naruto's mood hit rock bottom. His chances at becoming a ninja were getting worse and worse. In his mind, he pictured a middle aged Naruto still in Iruka's class, failing to perform the bunshin no jutsu. The Naruto in his mind was barely fitting in the chair behind his desk, and had a bad case of arthritis. He pictured kids taunting him for still being in the academy at an age when most ninjas would retire from their careers.

"Iruka, couldn't we cut him a little slack? I mean he did perform the correct seals…" Mizuki began, but was cut off by Iruka.

"I'm sorry, Naruto, Mizuki, but the requirements to graduate include successfully creating a bunshin, a clone. Even though you made the right hand seals and created _something_, it's not enough…" Iruka trailed off sadly.

Naruto ran out of the classroom, bursting through the doors, and jumping on his favorite swing on the swing set, ignoring the surprised looks from his classmates, and the pitying look from Shikamaru.

"Iruka, you go handle the rest of the exams. I'm going to go after Naruto." Mizuki said, grimly. But in his head, he was cheering. _'This was the opportunity I was waiting for!'_

Iruka nodded solemnly, before reentering the classroom and calling out, "Nara Shikamaru!"

Kurenai Yuuhi was going for a stroll. To her, nothing compared to the sight of the sunset in Konoha. She had been on numerous missions out of Fire Country as a jounin, and had seen some of the most amazing sights that each of the other countries had to offer. But no place, to Kurenai, made her feel as nostalgic and peaceful as the colorful bright skies that appeared in the evening, when the sun set.

She sighed contentedly, and walked past the academy, remembering the days when she was a young kunoichi. She strolled past the old training grounds, remembering, with a slight chuckle, the oh so famous bell test that her jounin sensei had put her team through when she was just a genin.

As she passed the Academy, she couldn't help but notice a dejected boy sitting on a swing set nearby. As she approached the boy, she froze, instantly recognizing Naruto.

She stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to look up at her and acknowledge her presence, even if it did mean run away from her, but he didn't. He seemed troubled – too troubled to do anything except sulk and stare at the ground while sitting on the swing set.

"Excuse me, Kurenai-san!" a hurried voice said as a man nearly bumped into her. She spun around, alert, and saw Mizuki running towards Naruto, probably to comfort him, she assumed.

But in the second she saw Mizuki's face, she could see an expression of evil intent, even if it only flashed for a second.

'_Suspicious…', _Kurenai mused inwardly, as she cast a genjutsu on herself to make her invisible. _'I had better check this out.'_


	5. Betrayals, and Realizations

This is my first fanfic ever!

And note, this is my first fight scene ever!

**READ AND REVIEW!** Greatly appreciate it!

Phew! Unusually long chapter - don't get used to this length - I'm not going to be consistently writing chapters of this length.

It just happened to end up this long _

* * *

"Naruto…", Mizuki said slowly, making eye contact with the boy, a concerned look on the sensei's face. Naruto looked upwards hesitantly into the eyes of his sensei, his own eyes a cerulean blue surrounded by jagged red veins. His nose was slightly reddened, also, signs that he had just been crying hard. The palms of his hands were slightly sweaty, and his fingernails wrapped tightly around the slightly rusted, metal chains that held up the swing he was sitting on. Naruto's face had a disappointed look on it, as if he felt as if his kitten had just been killed.

From a distance, Kurenai gasped involuntarily at the sight, quickly covering her mouth. She was still under the cover of one of her simple invisibility genjutsus, watching the scene with a slight bit of concern.

Hearing the slight gasp, Mizuki rotated his head about suspiciously, searching for any signs of a presence. His plan was going all too well, and he couldn't have some person ruining them. He looked around carefully, scanning the grounds, and was satisfied when he didn't see anyone.

Turning back to a sniffling Naruto, the expression on Mizuki's face shifted into a realistic but fake soft, consoling one.

"Naruto, are you alright?" He asked, trying to emit as much sympathy as possible.

Naruto relaxed slightly, and used one of his hands to wipe his eyes hastily before responding.

"I can't believe I failed the exam _again_…", he said miserably, pouting. Despite his predicament, Kurenai couldn't help but smirk a little bit and think _'Kawaii!!'_, before quickly composing herself despite being invisible.

"Don't worry, Naruto!", Mizuki said standing up, smiling with a toothy smile brightly. Alarm bells started going off in Kurenai's head. Naruto looked up at his sensei curiously.

"Don't worry?", he asked, incredulously, not believing what he just heard. "I just failed the genin exam, and I'll be stuck in the Academy for another year, and I'll be the oldest in my class. Everyone else is going to be kicking bad guy butt." He rambled on dismally, putting his head in his hands.

Mizuki smiled even brighter at that. 'Now's my chance!', he thought excitedly.

"No, Naruto! You're wrong about that."

Naruto peered upwards. "…what are you talking about, sensei?"

"You see, we can tell you've been working hard.", Mizuki started. Naruto's interest started to perk even more at this. "You've got the seals down for the bunshin no jutsu, and it's probably not even your fault that you can't process the small chakra needed to perform it correctly."

Naruto stared at the ground. "Then why did Iruka-sensei have to fail me?"

Mizuki paused. "You know, Naruto. Iruka is a lot like you, actually." Naruto wasn't convinced. "He wants you to work hard. He knows what it's like to be alone. He just wants you to succeed genuinely, and have worked hard to become a ninja."

"In fact, I have devised an alternate test for you to take!", he said beaming. Naruto froze, and then looked at him in disbelief.

"An alternate test?!", Naruto repeated, barely able to contain his excitement. Kurenai definitely did not like the way the conversation she was eavesdropping on was going.

"You see, Naruto, it's pretty simple." Mizuki said calmly, but in his head, he was laughing hard and evilly. _'Punk ass brat fell for it – hook, line and sinker!'_

"You have to sneak into the Hokage Tower, steal the Scroll of Sealing, and then learn a jutsu from it before anyone can find you!"

Kurenai's eyes widened. _'The scroll of sealing? That contains the secrets of Konoha… if that gets into the wrong hands… How… … surely, not even an academy student would fall for such a blatant -…'_

"You bet Mizuki-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed loudly and confidently, his energy reaching new peaks. Kurenai's jaw dropped.

Mizuki was grinning. "I knew you'll make me and Iruka proud, Naruto! The deadline is at midnight, by the way. You'll have to meet me in the forest, and I'll find you there!"

Kurenai quickly leapt from rooftop to rooftop towards the Hokage Tower, her mind going at a mile a minute. _'My god, he's actually going to do it! I have to warn the Hokage, if nothing else!'_

Naruto strolled back to his rundown apartment, in good spirits. People on the streets glared at him, muttering at him, but Naruto kept walking, unfazed.

'This is my chance!', he thought with a wide grin erupting on his face. 'I'll show them! I'll show everyone what I, Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage, is capable of!'

…_later that night…_

Kurenai was strolling towards the Hokage Tower. The sky was nearly pitch black. The entire village would be completely shrouded in darkness if it were not for the occasional street lamp and the every-so-often house that still had one or two lights on.

She chuckled slightly at the cause of her walk. Who was she to underestimate the Sandaime Hokage? After all, he was just taking on a small academy student who wasn't even able to pass the genin exam.

_"It's quite alright, Kurenai.", the Sandaime Hokage said, a hint of disappointment at the way Naruto had handled the situation, but a hint of amusement at it too. "I had planned on staying at work late either way. I have a hell of a lot of paperwork I had to catch up on."_

_He gestured toward the scary high stack of seemingly important papers._

_Kurenai smiled, relief flooding through her that the situation would be handled properly by the Hokage himself._

She knocked on the door of the Hokage's office. The door swung open without interference. On the ground, passed out with blood all over the carpet, was the Sandaime Hokage.

Kurenai gasped in horror and surprise. 'The Hokage was taken out by a child? B-b-but how? Is he alive?' She looked closer, and was disgusted to realize that the blood seemed to have came mainly from his nose.

She snorted in annoyance. 'Who knew that the most powerful ninja of Konoha was a pervert?'

_The Sandaime had a grave look on his face as Naruto entered. Naruto cursed his luck inwardly. 'He usually goes to bed by now…'_

_The Hokage got up from his desk and started walking towards Naruto._

"_I'm sorry, Naruto, but -…" he began before he was interrupted by an apologetic Naruto._

"_I'm sorry, old man, but I don't have time for a lecture!", he said grimly, before forming a tiger seal._

"_TRANSFORM!"_

_There was a poof of smoke, and in Naruto's place was a naked woman with blond hair. She had a perfect body, with curves in all the right places. One of her blue eyes closed in a provocative wink. She posed as if posing for a Playboy magazine, and then blew the Hokage a kiss._

_Hiruzen Sarutobi had survived burns that damaged his body beyond what they taught in med school. He had survived breaking nearly all the bones in his body. He had beaten the toughest ninjas around. But he couldn't beat a 12 year old boy who knew how to transform._

_His face turned red as he had a massive nosebleed and flew backwards onto the carpet, completely passed out._

_Naruto reemerged, and then laughed out loud as his prankster side showed through. He was still chuckling as he went through the Hokage's files and found the scroll he was looking for._

Kurenai turned to leave the room, when she heard a moan of pain. Quickly spinning back around, she saw the Hokage coming to, rubbing his forehead in pain and slight annoyance.

"Hokage-sama…", Kurenai looked at him. The Hokage rubbed his temples.

"Spare me the lecture…", he groaned, wiping his nose with a tissue. "And go after Naruto, if you please."

Kurenai gave him a look, and then nodded and ran out of the room. The Hokage got up from the floor, and sat back down on his desk, before getting out his crystal ball to watch the proceedings. He massaged his forehead. This was going to be a longer night than he had originally thought.

The forest at night was creepy and dark. It was dense with trees and gave you the shivers thinking about all the different ways you could be ambushed. The shadows of the trees made you feel like someone was always watching; being here for too long would definitely make you paranoid. What was scariest of all was the occasional breeze that picked up right as you were feeling safe and would rustle the leaves and plants on the ground noisily, sounding exactly like an intruder's footstep.

Naruto sighed in discomfort, and then hardened his resolve, and began to read the scroll.

…_slight time skip…_

"Naruto?", a familiar voice called. Naruto perked his head up. "Naruto!"

"Iruka-sensei?", Naruto called out.

Iruka came into view, with a ticked off look on his face. Naruto groaned half heartily. He knew that expression well. Too well.

_"Naruto!", Iruka yelled angrily, wearing the same expression on his face. Naruto groaned, and tuned out Iruka's lecture._

"_Painting the Hokage monument … disappointed in you … report to the Hokage …detention every day for a week …"_

Naruto sighed, tuning out the lecture that Iruka gave him again.

"Well you got me.", he said solemnly afterwards, hanging his head, in slight disappointment. Then he looked up, the corners of his lips perking up slightly. "But I did succeed – I learned the Kage Bunshin!"

Iruka wasn't expecting this. He stared for a while, trying to comprehend the situation and then spoke.

"What are you talking about? Why do you have the scroll, anyhow?"

Confusion appeared on Naruto's face. "The alternate test… right?"

Iruka took a step back. Confusion and suspicion started flooding through his head, visible on his facial features. "Alternate test? Alternate test for what?"

"Y'know, the alternate test for the genin exam… aren't you forgetting?", Naruto asked, wondering if Iruka had hit his head on something to make him lose his memory. He himself, seeing the confusion on Iruka's face, was starting to doubt whether an alternate test actually existed.

"Doesn't ring any bells. Who told you about this alternate test?"

"Mizuki-sensei did.", Naruto said promptly, while Iruka stifled a gasp. "He told me that if I stole the scroll of sealing and learned a jutsu from it, I'd graduate from the academy!"

Suddenly, Iruka's ninja senses were tingling. He screamed instinctively, "Naruto! Get down!", and they both fell to the ground hard just in time as a giant ninja star flew over their heads and impaled itself into a nearby tree.

Iruka paled as he looked up to see the smirking face of Mizuki.

"What is the meaning of this?!", Iruka barked.

Mizuki looked at the pair, grinning. Iruka and Naruto got up, dusting themselves off. Mizuki leaned against the trunk of a tree. He looked at them indifferently. "None of your concern. Naruto, hand over the scroll."

Naruto suddenly froze, realizing that something wasn't right. Was this really an alternate test? He looked from the smirking face of Mizuki to the shocked face of Iruka.

"Naruto, I said to hand over the sc-…", Mizuki started, but was cut off.

"NARUTO! WHAT EVER YOU DO DON'T LET MIZUKI HAVE THE SCROLL!", Iruka shouted loudly.

Naruto nodded at Iruka, whom he viewed as a father figure, and clutched the scroll tightly, making a face.

Mizuki started to get angry, but then he smiled shockingly, scaring Iruka and Naruto, making both of them extremely alert. "Naruto, do you know why you're called a demon all the time?"

Iruka paled suddenly, and threw kunai and ninja stars at Mizuki to shut him up. Mizuki smiled bigger, showing teeth. He jumped over the ninja stars, which hit a tree behind him, and then he landed easily, and resumed leaning against the tree he was leaning against before, acting cool and indifferent as if nothing had happened.

Naruto gaped at him. Was Mizuki going to tell him? He was dying to know. He wanted answers. He wanted to understand why the first years of his life had to be a living hell.

Mizuki continued, to Iruka's dismay. "You know the Kyuubi?" Naruto looked at him confused.

"Didn't we learn in class that it attacked Konoha and was kil-…" Naruto began.

"Actually, that's a lie.", Mizuki cut in. "No mortal could ever kill a demon. So, the Yondaime Hokage nicely sealed it within _you_, Naruto. You're the Kyuubi. You're a monster, a demon. You've killed hundreds of innocent shinobi." Mizuki began laughing as Iruka tried to interrupt to console Naruto, but before he could do so, Mizuki resumed the onslaught.

"Iruka and the Hokage hate you too! They lost precious people in the attack, didn't you Iruka?", Mizuki sneered at Iruka, who was starting to lose patience. Naruto looked on the verge of tears. So that was why. They weren't exaggerating at all when they had called him a demon… was that really true? Was he really the monster the villagers made him out to be?

"Naruto!", Iruka cried desperately, while Mizuki laughed hard, clutching his stomach as he did. Naruto looked up at Iruka, searching, almost frantically, for some escape, for some consolation.

"You aren't the demon!", Iruka said sadly. Mizuki only laughed harder hearing this. "I know you do have the demon inside of you, but there's a difference between the container and the contained! You're Uzumaki Naruto! Not the Kyuubi!"

Mizuki snickered. "Hear that, boy? He wants you to trust him, like you always have, like a blind lemming." Naruto paled. "You keep listening to his talk, and your life will resume being a living hell! Don't trust them!"

Iruka was on the verge of tears as well. "Don't listen to him!" he pleaded. "I'm sorry and I know what you've been through, but you have to trust me! Things will change. I promise."

Mizuki laughed in disbelief. "As if Naruto's going to buy that. Naruto, they're using you! They built the seal so that the Kyuubi could release, and they're going to use you like a tool! A weapon! You're not a human in their eyes!"

Iruka glared at Mizuki. "He's wrong. I acknowledge you as a person, and so does the Hokage. And soon will the rest of the village. If you just work hard as you always have", Naruto looked up hopefully. "and prove yourself to the whole world you're Uzumaki Naruto, and not the god damn Kyuubi that Mizuki over here sees you to be."

Naruto glared defiantly at Mizuki, and snarled. "You're never getting your damn hands on this scroll, _sensei_!". He put an emphasis on the last word, adding extra venom.

Mizuki growled. "Well then, we'll have to do this the hard way."

He whistled, and 4 ninja dropped down silently onto the ground, creating a rectangular formation surrounding them. They all had black leather bandanas covering the bottom halves of their faces. Their whole bodies were covered with jet black jump suits with kunai pouches.

"There's no way you're going to survive this one.", Mizuki stated, smiling. Iruka scowled and pulled kunai from his chuunin vest pouches into each hand. Naruto shivered slightly at the newcomers.

"I was going to kill Naruto.", Mizuki explained, casually twirling a kunai around his hand. "But since you interfered…", he continued, shooting a glare at Iruka. "…looks like you're both going down."

"Over my dead body.", Iruka said, confronting 2 of the ninja. "Naruto! Make a run for it!"

Naruto gulped as the other two ninja, and Mizuki, charged at him. He did the only thing he could think of doing. He put his hands into a ram seal, and shouted

"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

And 5 copies of him appeared, each being real, solid clones. They drew their own kunai and lunged back at the assailants. The ninja were taken aback, and Iruka took a look from his own battle and gave Naruto a quick, approving grin.

Mizuki grinned. "It doesn't matter how many clones you make, punk." He twirled his kunai, expertly jabbing it into the thigh of an incoming Naruto, making it yelp in pain and dispel. "As you've probably learned in the Academy…". He threw the kunai, which embedded itself into the forehead of another Naruto, which also dispelled. "One hundred times zero is still zero."

The ninja were making short work of the clones. After seconds, they were charging at Naruto again. Naruto instinctively drew a kunai from his pouch, and lunged at one of the ninja, who drew a kunai of his own.

They both slashed at each other, meeting in the middle with a loud clang. Unfortunately for Naruto, not only was he quickly overpowered by the strength of his attacker, there were still 2 more ninja to worry about. Mizuki drew another kunai and slashed Naruto through the leg. The other ninja made a huge gash in Naruto's chest. Mizuki went into a taijutsu stance and smashed his foot into Naruto's stomach, making Naruto fly backwards and slide on the ground painfully, his body aching from the attack.

Naruto groaned. This day was going from bad to worse. Mizuki approached him with the kunai, preparing to attack again. Iruka wasn't faring much better. Iruka was sporting multiple small cuts and was bleeding pretty badly, but his opponents were doing slightly worse – even having multiple kunai wounds to the face and torso.

Naruto rolled backwards, getting more distance from Mizuki and crew, and threw kunai at the approaching ninja, who easily dodged some and deflected others off their blades.

Kurenai was flying through the force at a quick speed, eyes peeled for any small blonde kids with giant scrolls. She suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream, and she winced and followed the noise.

Once she reached the source of the noise, she shuddered. There was Naruto on the ground, protectively covering the scroll beneath him. His face was all bloodied up, and there was a long gash, probably from a kunai blow, stretching over his forehead.

On his back were two more large slash wounds, in the shape of an X. His jumpsuit was torn in multiple places, and in several other places there were red blotches of blood. She noticed Mizuki and 2 ninja approaching him quickly, supposedly to finish off the job.

Quickly evaluating the skill levels of the unknown masked ninja, they seemed to be chuunin level. Kurenai smirked inwardly. Good thing she had just been promoted to jounin, then, right?

The ninja grinned as they approached the shivering boy with the scroll, when suddenly the world turned shades of pink.

Mizuki shouted, "What the -…", as pink flower petals danced through the air gracefully, peacefully hitting the ground.

One of the ninja shouted, "Genjutsu!", but it was too late. Said petals suddenly swirled around them, creating a tornado, with the 3 ninja in the middle. The tips of the petals suddenly stiffened and sharpened, and the chuunin were being slashed and cut in countless places at once as each petal flew by.

Kurenai expertly knocked the 3 unconscious in reality with successive blows to the neck. She suddenly felt a presence behind her, and twirled around, drawing a kunai, preparing for an attack.

"Relax, Kurenai, it's just me.", an exhausted Iruka said, grinning. He had cuts all over him as well, and on each shoulder was an unconscious ninja.

Kurenai relaxed her tense muscles, and she brought the 3 "sleeping" ninja and an unconscious Naruto back to Konoha, Iruka carrying the Scroll of Sealing.

…_days later…_

"I suppose we have to graduate him.", a voice said.

"Graduate him? But he failed the exam.", another surprised voice replied.

"Still, you failed him as a result of him not being to produce a bunshin… and here we see him summoning 5 solid clones! How does that not warrant a graduation?" the first voice responded.

"You're probably right… I think he's waking up.", the second voice said, a hint of amusement in the tone.

Naruto slowly opened his eyes, groaning. Pure white surrounding him, blinding him from all angles.

He yelped in surprise and in pain, and covered his eyes quickly, shielding them from the light.

His vision was slightly blurry, and he rubbed his eyes, and when he blinked a couple times, he saw the old man and Iruka standing beside his bed. He saw a red eyed woman sitting in a chair in the back of the room, looking at him intently. Naruto instantly recognized her, as… someone he had seen before… but he didn't know her name. Naruto blinked again in surprise when he saw Iruka without his forehead protector and covered in bandages.

"Hey Naruto!", Iruka greeted with a warm smile. "Feeling all right?"

Naruto nodded quickly before noting, "Iruka-sensei, where's your hitai-ate?"

Iruka grinned before pointing at Naruto, who followed the finger and looked around his neck, where he saw the hitai-ate, shining brightly back at him.

Naruto gasped in surprise and stared at his reflection in the gleaming metal of the hitai-ate. Seeing the expression on his face, the three other ninja in the room smiled genuinely.

Iruka smiled even wider. "You've earned it, Naruto!"


	6. Awkwardness

This is my first fanfic!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto.

Please give me feedback so I can improve! R&R! I appreciate it, ;)

School restarted for me, so don't expect updates every day, or updates every two days, but then again, those aren't impossible. In other words, don't get upset if I end up having to take a hiatus or something, although that's really unlikely for now.

* * *

Naruto scanned the room quickly, deciding who in the room of the freshly graduated Genin from the Academy he wouldn't mind being on the same team with.

His gaze fell upon the brooding Uchiha, who had his eyes closed in deep thought. Sasuke's head was tilted downwards. His arms were folded close to his chest. He was wearing his ordinary blue jacket with the white and red Uchiha crest imprinted on the back, as well as his white shorts.

'I hear he's the last of the famous and powerful Uchiha clan.', Naruto thought. 'I guess he wouldn't be too bad…' Naruto acknowledged him as one of the only people in the Academy who didn't see him as the demon, or ignore him because of their parents' influence.

Naruto scowled as he looked glancingly at the fan girls of the class, meaning most of the girls, anyway, who were fawning and doting over Sasuke, fighting over who'd sit next to him. 'What do they see in him, anyway?', Naruto thought, slightly jealous.

He then kept looking, and saw Hinata Hyuuga, the heiress of the high and mighty Hyuuga clan. Hinata saw him looking at her, and she let out a slight, high pitched yelp, and blushed a mighty red.

'I wonder why she's acting like this – maybe she's got a fever?', Naruto mused thoughtfully, and thought nothing of it.

'She wouldn't be too bad either.', Naruto pondered. 'She's not like those shallow fangirls.', he added in his mind, glancing in annoyance at the fangirls, who met his gaze and glared back at him. Then he noticed a pink haired kunoichi also glaring at him. Suddenly his willpower gave. "he-he-… sorry… Sakura-chan…", he spluttered, chuckling nervously, with a sheepish look on his face as the fan girls resumed sighing over their Sasuke-kun.

Then there was a very mysterious looking boy with dark sunglasses and a large, covering trench coat. 'So different…', Naruto looked at him, shuddering slightly as Shino made eye contact with him. 'So creepy…'.

Well, there was Shikamaru, who was taking a nap. Naruto sighed, slightly amused. That was to be expected of a boy who thought everything was 'troublesome' and 'a drag'.

Sitting next to Shikamaru was a rather chubby boy who was greedily mashing chips. Chouji suddenly peered into the bag, and then groaned loudly. "Aww, man.", he mumbled discontentedly. "It's out again?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. Typical Chouji. Always thinking with his stomach.

He was about to examine the other fellow graduates, but at that moment, Iruka walked into the room, beaming proudly.

"Hello class!", he shouted loudly, causing Naruto to quickly scramble into the closest empty seat. "I'm proud to say that all of you sitting here have graduated from the Academy."

"All of you have been placed on 3 man teams.", Iruka continued. Naruto's interest perked slightly. "Each team, or _squad_, shall I say, will have the instruction of a certain jounin, who will become your sensei."

Naruto's mouth widened in awe. A _jounin_? Jounins were like… the elite! The almighty! The best ninja in the village! Then again, there was the Hokage, who even the jounin had to answer to, and he wasn't even much of a challenge…

Naruto remembered the encounter he had with the Hokage, and the Sandaime passed out on the floor, his nose bleeding profusely, and Naruto snickered quietly.

"Anyways, I'm going to be announcing your squads."

"Team One…", Iruka started, and he began telling the class their teams.

… "Team Seven will consist of Akimichi Chouji, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. Your jounin-sensei will be Hatake Kakashi."

There was an extremely high pitched squeal of happiness that erupted from Sakura, who was glad at the prospect of being on the same team as Sasuke.

"Team Eight will consist of Nara Shikamaru, Uzumaki Naruto, Yamanaka Ino. Your jounin-sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai."

Naruto suddenly froze. 'Kurenai… Kurenai… where have I heard that name before?'. After trying desperately to remember something of this strangely familiar name to no avail, he relaxed, and smiling at Shikamaru, who was smirking back at him.

From the corner of the room, Naruto noticed, Sasuke gave him a nod of approval, and a smirk of his own.

_The jounin-senseis were gathered in the Hokage's office, giving their requests for the students they wanted to be on their team._

"_Request granted, Kurenai.", the Sandaime said, aware that Kurenai was one of the only people in the village who actually knew Naruto somewhat, without rash assumptions to cloud her vision. "Your team will have Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino."_

"_Kurenai…", Kakashi said, intrigued. "I'm interested in knowing why you specifically chose that team." Kurenai was puzzled at first as to why Kakashi would ask, but then raised an eyebrow when she realized that he was questioning her choice of a certain Uzumaki Naruto to be on her team. Her blood began to boil slightly when she realized that Kakashi was referring to the fact that Naruto was the 'dead last' of the class._

"_I decided to go for the well rounded team this time around.", she stated simply, and then elaborated. "I chose Nara Shikamaru, because I have heard of his extreme intelligence. Although he is not proficient in taijutsu, I feel he will become the brains of the genin trio. I chose Yamanaka Ino because she, during the genin exam, showed relatively strong taijutsu scores, and scored pretty well in her ninjutsu scores. As for Uzumaki Naruto, I feel that he has shown relative strength in ninjutsu and will help us in the taijutsu department. Combined with my genjutsu specialty, I believe this is a strong team. I can also act as a support in ninjutsu or taijutsu."_

_Kakashi furrowed his brow. "I don't know what you're talking about. Naruto was the undisputed last of the class."_

_Kurenai sighed grimly. "He is able to produce 5 solid kage bunshin, and I do not know as of now if that is the extent of his abilities. Even so, 5 kage bunshin surpasses the rest of the class, who can only produce 1 regular bunshin." Sarutobi smiled at this, knowing she was doing well in defending Naruto._

"_His taijutsu, on observation on one account, was rather pathetic,", she admitted, but then continued. "But he has a large amount of stamina, which Iruka can back me up on" A dark look passed on Iruka's face when he recalled in his head the countless times he had been pranked on by Naruto. ", which means that he will able to improve his taijutsu soon enough with enough hard work."_

"Team 9 is in a different class. Team 10 will consist of Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba. Your jounin-sensei will be Sarutobi Asuma."

"Those are all the teams! The jounin-senseis will be here soon. They will arrive at different times, and you guys will get to know your team better!", Iruka waved, grinning and left the room, right as Asuma entered.

"Team 10, come with me.", he said gruffly, and left the room. The 3 genin quickly followed after him.

As jounin-sensei after jounin-sensei arrived to pick up their teams, the only teams left in the room were teams 7 and 8.

"Where's our sensei?!", Naruto whined loudly. "I want to learn a new kick ass jutsu! I can't do that if our sensei is nearly 2 hours late!"

"What a drag…", Shikamaru responded, staring at the clouds outside of the room.

Sasuke sat in the corner, brooding, starting to get impatient, like Naruto, but chose not to voice his opinions.

"It doesn't really matter – this curse could turn out to be a blessing… we're getting more time with Sasuke-kuuuun!", Sakura and Ino screamed in delight and stared at the Uchiha dreamily.

Kurenai Yuuhi was feeling very disappointed. Here she was, leaning against the wall of the classroom, hidden under a simple invisibility genjutsu, and she hadn't been discovered yet. She was observing her genin team, slightly iffed that they hadn't found her yet, even with her constantly flaring her chakra up purposely, trying to catch their attention. She was nonetheless upset that Ino had turned out to be a complete fangirl.

"When I'm Hokage", Naruto shouted, pissed off at their 'late' sensei. "I'm going to make a law that no one can be late!".

Everyone in the room, except Naruto had a sudden impulse to roll their eyes.

'How are you going to become Hokage, Naruto', Kurenai thought, a smile playing on her lips. 'If you can't even find me when I'm under an obvious genjutsu?'

Suddenly the door to the room opened slightly. Naruto glanced upwards in hopefulness, as did everyone else in the room, except for the invisible Kurenai. The silver haired jounin entered the room, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

"Sorry I'm late.", he said calmly to his new team. "I… I got lost on the road of life."

The entire room sweatdropped at the lame excuse. Kurenai decided that this game had been going on long enough, and decided to come in with a 'bang', namely, by scaring the wits out of the nearest genin there, which happened to be Naruto.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, easily spotting what he knew was Kurenai approaching the unaware Naruto. He decided to stay there for a bit, just to get a kick out of the surprised face of the dead last.

Shikamaru muttered softly. "I read about Kurenai-sensei in a bingo book, I think. She's a genjutsu mistress… and… wait!"

Naruto and Sasuke looked at him, before realization dawned on them. Kakashi smirked as Kurenai approached Naruto. 'They realized', he thought in anticipation, watching the facial expression of Naruto carefully. 'But it's too late now.'

Quickly, while muttering "troublesome" under his breath, which Naruto caught quickly, he quickly formed a seal, and whispered "Kai".

Kurenai was definitely caught off guard by the sudden dispelling of her invisibility genjutsu. Shikamaru went wide eyed seeing her approaching Naruto and shouted instinctively, "Naruto! Behind you!".

She was caught even more off guard, if it was humanly possible, when Naruto spun around and they made eye contact. Crimson eyes in cerulean eyes. It was just bad luck that she was in mid step when she saw Naruto's face staring at her own. Her attempt to freeze in surprise from instincts and the momentum from moving forward to cause her to lose her balance.

Kurenai slipped forward awkwardly, and in an attempt to balance herself, grabbed the nearest solid object – Naruto's shoulders. Naruto, suddenly caught by surprise when Kurenai used his shoulders to steady herself, wasn't prepared for the onrush of momentum, which caused him, which caused Kurenai, to fall backwards into a heap on the floor.

It was the result of these coincidential happenings that ended up with Kurenai on top of Naruto in one position that an onlooker might glancingly label, "an intimate scene".

Both of their eyes were as wide as dinner plates as Kurenai's lips were caught in Naruto's own in a tremendously awkward, tremendously unexpected meeting of lips. Everyone froze, from Kurenai to Naruto, to everyone in the room, to everyone watching in the Hokage Tower, as their brains attempted to process the information.

Then Kurenai and Naruto, realizing the situation first, leapt back in shock, blushing thousands of shades of red. And then the others in the room began to laugh.

"Kurenai, I didn't know you were into teacher-student relationships…", Kakashi said while roaring in laughter.

Shikamaru grinned. "Troublesome blondes…"

"Impatient, are we?", Sasuke said, joining the laughter in the room. Naruto and Kurenai were glaring at them, before Kurenai's professional side kicked in.

She walked towards Naruto, growled "Pervert", and then gave him a hard slap across the face, causing him to fly towards the wall. Glancing at the other members of the genin team, she said, "Meet me on the roof", and then quickly shunshined away.

Naruto pulled his head out of the classroom wall. The girls were all laughing at his predicament. Shikamaru finally got over it, and then yawned.

"Come on.", Shikamaru said finally, gesturing to Naruto and Ino to follow him. "We'd better follow our sensei's instructions."

Naruto followed Shikamaru, before feeling a strong slap on the back. He looked questioningly behind him, to see a grinning Kakashi (you could tell he was grinning by the shape of his eye).

"You managed to get a kiss from the Ice Queen of Konoha.", he said smiling still.

"Ice Queen of Konoha?", Naruto repeated, confused.

"She's known for being the sexiest lady in all of Konoha, but also for rejecting every single date request she's gotten.", Kakashi said in return.

'I am sooo dead…', Naruto gulped in dread, and then proceeded to follow Shikamaru and Ino up onto the roof, where a still red Kurenai was waiting.

"I'd like you to introduce yourselves, so we can get to know each other better.", Kurenai said promptly, gesturing at them to invite them to sit, which they did.

'I don't think that's possible.', Ino thought, laughing inside as she looked at Kurenai and Naruto.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage!", Naruto stated brightly. "I like ramen, and Shikamaru. I dislike fangirls, and the time you have to wait while your ramen is being made. I dream to become Hokage one day – and then everyone will have to acknowledge me!" He jumped to his feet and energetically pumped his fist in the air.

Kurenai nodded, and then turned slightly. "You then.", looking straight at Shikamaru.

Shikamaru groaned, and then spoke. "I am Shikamaru. I like doing nothing, and being with my friends Naruto and Chouji. I hate doing things… they're all drags… my dream is to live a life of relaxation." He looked dreamily up at the sky, where the clouds were peacefully drifted across the sky.

Ino felt a vein throb on her forehead, and then spoke. "My name is Ino Yamanaka. I like flowers, … and a certain someone." With that, she looked up at the sky, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "My dream is to get married to a certain someone…", her cheeks once again turning pink. Naruto groaned at the prospect of having a big time fangirl on his squad.

Shikamaru, sharing Naruto's dislike of fangirls in general, just rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and sighed. "Troublesome…"

"Right.", Kurenai said. "I'm Kurenai Yuuhi, your jounin-sensei. And you are Squad 8. I like genjutsu, and being with my friends. I dislike perverts" Kurenai noticed that at this, Naruto looked slightly uncomfortable and started rubbing his cheek where Kurenai had hit him, and she immediately started to feel sorry for her outburst. ", racists and morons. My dream is to help Konoha be a safe haven for all."

"Now that we've gotten to know each other relatively well…", Kurenai stated. "We can start working as a squad." She chuckled at the brightening faces of the new 'genin'. "IF you guys pass the genin exam."

Naruto whined loudly. "Genin exam? Didn't we just _take_ a genin exam?"

Shikamaru groaned louder. "This is getting out-of-hand troublesome…"

Ino complained the loudest and the bossiest. "I'd have to agree with Naruto and Shikamaru here."

Kurenai smiled. "No, _that_ genin exam only weeded out the people with barely any potential. This genin exam will narrow down to the best and the brightest teams."

"This will be a survival exercise.", she explained. "It will take place tomorrow morning at 0800. Meet me in this exact spot."

She looked at the genin. "Any questions?". There was a pause. "No? Okay. See you all tomorrow. And _don't be late_."

The genin got up, dismissed, and began to leave.

"Naruto.", Kurenai said as he turned to go home. He turned around curiously. "I'd like to speak to you."

"H-hai S-s-sensei.", Naruto replied quickly, jumping into a quick salute, clearly scared of what his sensei was going to do to him. Probably punish him for what happened earlier? Naruto surely hoped not.

"I'm sorry.", she said, making eye contact with him. He was taken aback. "I was out of hand. It was my mistake that… _that_ happened, and I-I guess I pinned the blame on you without thinking clearly."

"It's o-okay, sensei." Naruto said, looking slightly sheepish. His face turned slightly red, remembering the scene.

They both shared a short painful grin of mutual understanding as they realized how much they were going to be teased. How right they were.

Naruto sighed as he walked towards his rundown apartment. The date was October 1st. The worst day of the year for him, his _birthday_, was in 9 days. He had hoped that as a ninja, he would learn cool skills to protect himself from the villagers. No, he supposed, not yet.


	7. Working As A Team

This is still my first fanfic _.

R&R greatly appreciated!

* * *

This is an extremely short chapter, but the next one will appear soon enough.

The loud buzzing of the alarm clock awoke an extremely annoyed genin. Naruto groaned as he sat up in his small, cozy bed. He adjusted his blue fuzzy nightcap and stretched his arms, yawning loudly.

Stealing a glance at the infernal device that had woken him up, which at the time said 7:00, he relaxed. An hour. Plenty of time.

He dropped onto the wooden floor, wincing immediately at the sudden change of temperature between the warm bed and the freezing floors. Jumping slightly, he quickly dashed into the bathroom, where he took a comforting shower.

He ripped the covering off of a container of instant ramen, and filled the cup to the brim with water. He popped the mixture into the microwave, and let it run for 3 minutes. Naruto changed, and then picked up his hitai-ate, which denoted him as a true shinobi of Konoha. Proudly, he wrapped the hitai-ate rather carefully around his forehead.

Naruto had decided to wear something different today instead of his traditional orange jumpsuit. He was wearing a sleeveless blue thin shirt. It had a long stripe going from the front to the back that curved, turned and made a gigantic, connected, complicated yet brilliant design. He was wearing long, rather wide pants that fit around him snugly. They were black, and flowed easily, allowed him to move freely.

Naruto snapped the buckles of various pouches, such as his kunai and shuriken pouches, on himself.

He admired his new look in a nearby mirror. He tightened the knot on the back of his hitai-ate as the microwave beeped audibly, noting that the ramen was done. Quickly, Naruto swiped a pair of chopsticks from next to his sink, and then began busily consuming the ramen in large slurps.

When he was done, he took another look at the alarm clock. '7:45', he thought. '15 minutes to get back to the Academy – I can make it.' He burst out of the door of his apartment, and dashed towards the designated meeting point, his excitement levels reaching new heights.

He ran by many of the villagers of Konoha, each giving him cold, hard stares. They glared at his hitai-ate, their expressions showing clearly their thoughts.

'How did a demon ever become a ninja?' 'I thought the last mob took care of the brat.' 'Go wreak havoc in another village, bastard!'

Naruto inwardly shivered involuntarily. He wondered to himself, how could be stay so strong and happy with so much hate piled on him? As he ran, he thought about his. Maybe he was getting used to it. Maybe he was getting stronger emotionally. Maybe he felt that if he radiated pure happiness, others would catch on. I mean, how do you get rid of darkness? By adding light.

He reached the roof just in the nick of time. He burst through the door that led to the Academy roof right as the clock next to the patiently waiting Kurenai and the other two genin went off, telling everyone that it was now 8:00.

Ino and Kurenai gawked at his new look. Ino just looked at Naruto strangely, trying to figure out what went on in his blond head. Kurenai inwardly admitted slightly that the new look fit him rather well.

Shikamaru smirked. He gazed upwards at the clear skies of Konoha. "Troublesome blondes…", he muttered, causing Ino to give him a hard look. Naruto, of course, just grinned.

Feeling the tension rise within her genin team, Kurenai quickly started. "Hello squad 8. Basically, for this examination, there are 3 bells. Each one of you wants to get your hands on one before the clock hits noon."

There was an awkward silence, before Naruto popped in. "Kurenai-sensei, where are the bells, exactly?"

Kurenai smiled slightly. "Follow me", she said, gesturing.

They went down, off the roof, and walked for the better part of a half hour until they reached a large forest.

"I've hid the bells within this forest.", she said smugly. "I've placed a few traps here and there, and when I see fit, I myself may do something."

The genin nodded. "You can start now…", she said, and the 3 dashed into the forest, each in their own separate directions. 'Let's see if they ever figure out what they're supposed to do…', she thought.

Naruto was speeding past trees, using his Kage Bunshin to help him scout around for the bells. After searching for about an hour, one of the clones dispelled to tell him that he had found one of the bells. Following the directions from the dispelled Kage Bunshin, he saw an amazingly gargantuan tree. Hanging from one of the uppermost branches, was the bell, which was dangling on a string, wrapped and knotted tightly around the branch.

Naruto pondered for a couple moments, before smirking. 'Is that all?' He drew a kunai from his kunai pouch, and threw it right at the string, hoping to cut it to make the bell fall right into his open hands.

But of course, there were complications. The tree was so tall that even with Naruto channeling tremendous amounts of chakra into his muscles to improve the height of his throw, he was unable to reach the branch the bell was on.

Growling, Naruto decided to climb. He wrapped the fingers of his left hand around a smaller stump of a branch in reach, and then dug his feet into small grooves in the tree's trunk. Naruto began his long journey up.

He had made it about a quarter way up, and he had a determined look in his eye. 'I'm definitely going to pass this exam!' He continued his climb, when he felt a slight resistance on his forehead that suddenly went away. Naruto came to a horrible realization. There had been a barely visible string, and Naruto's forehead had broken it. That could mean only one thing. 'Shiiit…', he thought. He felt multiple sharp objects plunge into his back, and he barely stifled a yelp of pain.

'I can't get deterred by something as small as this!'. He kept going upwards. After a couple more moments of easy climbing, his left foot, desperately trying to find a foot hold, pressed down on a lever concealed as a branch. Naruto winced as more needles smashed into his back and legs.

As Naruto continued his ascension, he was continually barraged with needles, the occasional blunt mace, and false footholds.

He found a place where he could relax for a moment. Looking at his distance from the ground and the distance from the bell, he estimated that he was about half way. Kurenai, looking at him, concealed in a genjutsu, flinched each time he triggered another trap.

'Good thing', she mused, cringing as another wave of needles impaled her student, 'I decided on using senbons for the traps, and not actual kunai… I wouldn't want my students dying on me. Although he's slightly dumb for still going even though he's hitting almost every trap I set on that tree' She giggled slightly. 'I have to admit, he's persistent.'

Naruto was about to reach upwards, when he stopped his hand just in time. His hand was centimeters away from snapping a small wire, that was plainly visible from the sunlight boring down on it. Naruto smiled knowingly. He was getting better at this. Or so he thought. He reached just over that wire which ended up tripping a different, smaller wire placed sneakily right beyond the first.

'Goddamnit!', he cursed inwardly, as a large rock smashed into his hand. The sudden pain relinquished his grasp. Instinctively, Naruto's unhurt hand flew to his kunai pouch, and in one swift movement, drew a kunai and plunged it into the tree, and then hung onto the kunai for dear life. Unfortunately, he had not stabbed with enough force, and he and the kunai fell a good 100 meters, where he would have fallen unconscious if he had not fallen into a bush.

'I can't fail this test!', he cried. 'I wonder how Shikamaru and Ino are doing.'

Somewhere in the middle of the forest, Shikamaru groaned. "What a drag… something doesn't feel right…". Lying 50 feet away from him, was a bell, just plain lying on the ground. Shikamaru looked closer, and saw an intricate web of trip wires and traps just waiting for a reckless person to get caught.

Shikamaru sighed. 'Troublesome.'

From Ino's place, she wasn't faring much better. She was dangling upside down by her left ankle, trying to free herself from a rope that was holding her up. There was a giant crater in the ground, that was mostly concealed by a boulder. The part that wasn't concealed showed that underneath the boulder, was the bell. She sighed, and then continued sawing away at her constraints with a kunai. She had tried earlier, unsuccessfully to get at the bell – by reaching under the boulder, by trying to break or move the boulder, etc.

It was 11:30. 30 minutes remained in the genin test. Naruto was close to finishing freeing himself from ninja wire that was pinning him to a tree. He was thinking darkly, 'If Shikamaru were here he'd know what to do… the lazy bastard genius…'… when suddenly an idea dawned on him. 'I should go talk to Shikamaru and Ino!'

He finished freeing himself and dashed around, this time searching for Shikamaru and Ino with himself and his Kage Bunshin.

Finally giving them all the message, they were all gathered in the place right outside of the forest, where they'd all started. It was 11:45.

"Naruto, you may be right.", Shikamaru said slowly. "The bell I was going at was impossible to get at by myself. Every time I was going to advance, there always seemed to be a trip wire. If there were multiple people, they would be able to figure out quickly where the wires were."

Ino pondered. "My bell would be simple to get if you could get rid of the boulder. That would be possible with the combined effort of multiple people."

Naruto took their thoughts into account. "I'm starting to think this test was made for us all to work together."

Their discussion was rudely interrupted by a loud ringing sound. The genin team groaned. Time was up.

"Yeesh, we all failed…", Naruto began, feeling downcast.

"On the contrary", the genin team jumped at the sound of their sensei's voice. They spun 360 degrees, attempting to find the source, but failed. "You all passed." A genjutsu dropped, and their sensei was beaming proudly at them.

"Y-y-you were watching the whole time?", Ino stuttered.

"We passed?", Naruto said, disbelieving.

"Of course. The test was to test whether you could work as a team. You guys, at the end, figured out the meaning of the test. While you didn't physically acquire the bells, you did know how to continue."

Giving a loud whoop of joy, Naruto jumped high. He pumped his fist in the air after promptly high fiving Shikamaru, who had a relieved expression on his face.

Ino herself was feeling a sense of pride.

Kurenai gave them a short genuine smile, before resuming acting serious.

"You may all have passed, but your life as a shinobi has just begun. You have gone through many hardships in your lives up to this point, but from here on in it just gets harder. You won't be able to make it if you don't work hard and slack off."

Shikamaru groaned. More work? He became a ninja to _avoid_ work!

"I want you guys to meet me in our normal place, the roof of the Academy, tomorrow morning at 0800 again, and we will commence our training." Kurenai said.

The team just beamed, and then saluted their sensei and ran off.

For lunch, Naruto went to the only plausible place for lunch in his view – Ichiraku Ramen! As he slurped up his 20th bowl of miso ramen, he thought about his performance during the genin exam. To put it simply, he was slightly disappointed in himself.

He thought about how he was unable to dodge the senbon, and the blunt objects. He thought about how he had fallen just because of a small pain.

Later that night, in a nameless shinobi bar in the middle of Konoha, the jounin senseis were meeting and discussing their new teams.

"I was slightly disappointed.", Asuma said, fiddling with his beard stubble. "The Inuzuka brat was extremely easy to anger. It was kind of hilarious how easily I was able to draw him out of his hiding spot and fight him in a one on one taijutsu match. But using the Aburame's calmness and the Hyuuga's expertise in the jyuuken, they were able to take one of the bells."

_Kiba was lying on the ground in an obscure position, watching his sensei carefully. Asuma was spit shining his trench knives, whistling a jolly tune. There were 2 bells attached to his belt._

_(flashback to an even earlier time)_

"_For this genin exam, I want you guys to try and take one of these bells.", Asuma stated, watching the expressions on his team's faces."_

"_But A-A-Asuma-sensei", Hinata pointed out, "there are only 2 bells, and 3 of us!"_

_Asuma grinned. Fell right for it._

"_Of course. One of you isn't going to get a bell. One of you is going to fail."_

_Shino looked at him warily, searching Asuma's grin for any hints. He adjusted his glasses, and stared upwards in thought._

_(end flashback)_

"_Wow these genin are worse than last year.", he said loudly, enunciating each syllable, already aware that Kiba was watching him in the shadows. "I mean, that Inuzuka kid, even. I thought he had some potential, but it looks like he's too chicken to - …"_

_He was cut off by a wave of kunai flying from Kiba's hiding spot. Asuma easily dodged and blocked the surprise attack, and wasn't surprised when Kiba and his dog Akamaru charged him, the former's face completely red with anger._

"_You're going to take back what you said before!", he shouted angrily, before throwing a messy punch, which Asuma dodged easily. Asuma twirled around expertly, using his leg to knock Kiba off balance before he slid behind Kiba, and shoved him forcefully onto the ground. Akamaru attempted to save his master, but Asuma just parried Akamaru's attacks with his trench knife._

"Just as expected", Kakashi said slowly, fiddling with a shuriken. "The Uchiha was brash and rude. He acted like he was the king of world." The other jounins nodded. "He did show some potential, however. He was able to use a fireball jutsu, showing above average chakra control and reserves. The Haruno kid basically fell apart because of a simple genjutsu of her _Sasuke-kun _getting hurt." Kurenai shook her head in distaste. Being incapacitated by a simple genjutsu was one thing. If it was all because of her fangirlness, that was another. "The Akimichi kid, however, was pretty strong and also showed potential. He was cool and calm until I called him fat." The jounins chuckled, and Iruka winced, knowing how touchy Chouji was about the subject.

"All of the kids on my squad did rather well.", Kurenai said. The other senseis scoffed and choked on their sake in surprise.

"_All?_", Kakashi inquired. Kurenai nodded. "Including the Uzumaki? The dead last?"

Kurenai smirked. "In fact, it was Naruto who figured out the meaning of the test."

Kakashi was at a loss for words. The senseis' jaws dropped.

"Kakashi, I see a fly buzzing in your mouth.", Kurenai teased, grinning as Kakashi promptly closed his mouth and hmmphed. He was unhappy by the fact that his team was outdone by Kurenai's team – which had the dead last, no less.

Not to be outdone in this duel of words, Kakashi countered. "You sure you didn't help them? You did show an interest in the Uzumaki brat in the classroom." He smirked knowingly at the redness on Kurenai's face.

"S-shut up." She said quickly, both remembering the awkward thing that happened that day. The other senseis looked at them, confused.

"Oh you don't know? Well it was about 2 hours af-…", Kakashi began, but was silenced by a genjutsu from Kurenai. Kakashi promptly fell unconscious.

The senseis looked, shocked at Kurenai, who was extremely red with embarrassment as well as anger.

Kurenai grinned, her redness fading back to her normal face. "Oh – it's nothing."

The other senseis nodded, continuing their conversation as Kakashi kept drooling on the ground and mumbling something about being attacked by animated dango.


	8. The Power of Willpower

This is still my first fanfic…

Regardless, hope you enjoy! (Nothing special to say here).

This is a slightly short chapter you could call an "intermediate" chapter. Sometimes I might do something like this.

* * *

Dust flew slightly above the ground, its particles flying upwards for a short period of time, before gently dropping back on to the ground, surrounding a quick succession of footprints. Leaves were kicked up, as were small lumps of dirt and grass.

Naruto was running. Sweat gleamed off his forehead. His muscles ached terribly. His shoes were starting to wear; and the amount of damage on them was starting to show. Naruto leapt towards a large tree and closed his eyes. Channeling a large amount of chakra into his feet, he landed feet first on the trunk of the tree with a dull thump. With that, he began dashing up the tree, constantly trying to keep his balance using the chakra in his feet.

It was only a matter of time, however, when Naruto realized that he wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. Twirling the kunai in his right hand, he made a quick horizontal slash on the tree where his feet were, and then leapt backwards, twisting gracefully in the air before landing on his stomach on the ground. He moaned painfully.

The sky was a dullish black, illuminated by the scattered dots of light that were the stars. Shaking his head in disappointment, he got up and dusted his pants off before running towards the tree once again.

"_Today" Kurenai said, "I will teach you how to climb trees."_

_Ino snorted, and Shikamaru yawned. Naruto looked slightly pissed off. "But sensei, we already know how to climb trees!"_

_Kurenai's eyes sparkled excitedly before saying, "Then copy me."_

_She walked slowly up to the tree, before walking up the tree as if it were the ground. She wasn't even using her hands! Once she reached the top, she grinned at the amazed expressions on her genins' faces, and sat down on one of the top branches._

_Naruto, brimming with excitement, attempt to copy her and ran up to the tree, gathering speed. He ran up the tree for about 4 feet, before sliding back down and landing painfully on his butt._

_Kurenai gave off a musical laugh before easily launching herself back down onto the ground. "This is slightly more complicated than it looks."_

"_I want you guys to gather chakra to your feet.", she instructed. The three genin did so. "This is a chakra control exercise." Naruto groaned, remembering Iruka's boring exercises._

"_Now, try walking up the tree. Use your kunai to mark your progress."_

_Naruto grinned, attempting the exercise. He was slightly iffed when he wasn't able to go past 4 feet up, which was the same distance that he could go if he wasn't even using chakra. Shikamaru smirked at him from his point 5 feet higher than him. Ino smiled proudly as she was at a height more than double Shikamaru's._

_Kurenai frowned. '4 feet?', she thought. 'Naruto certainly shows potential, but 4 feet? Most genin reach at least 5 feet even on their first tries…'_

_They kept trying at it for hours, before it became noon time._

"_Naruto, the squad is going to have lunch together." Kurenai said, slightly worried that Naruto was overexerting himself. Naruto's shoes began to show signs of wear from all the times he'd tried._

_Naruto's highest strike on the tree was a measly 5 feet. Shikamaru and Ino had made it to the top of their trees. Naruto growled fiercely, and mumbled, "I have to get this down…"_

_Kurenai tried to convince him to go with them, but Naruto resisted and was adamant._

_Kurenai finally gave up. She sighed. "Boy are you stubborn. Just don't kill yourself, okay?" Naruto nodded, determined, before trying again._

_When they got back from a fulfilling lunch of barbecue and dango, they were amazed to see Naruto still going at it. They looked at the tree Naruto was slashing at, and noticed that he had improved surely but slowly, his highest mark now at around 6 feet._

_Naruto was panting hard. Drops of sweat were on his whole face. Cuts and bruises from repeated falls littered his face and hands. His pants had several rips in them, and his shoes looked as if they had been used for months._

_Kurenai sighed. "Do you guys want to wait for Naruto before continuing? Or do you want me to show you the next exercise?"_

'_Wow, an opportunity to relax!', Shikamaru thought excitedly. "I'll wait for Naruto.", he said coolly, shrugging._

_Ino shook her head. "I'd like to move on." Kurenai nodded, and led Ino to a pool of water not far from the forest, to teach her water walking. Shikamaru sat down and decided to watch Naruto._

_Hours passed. Naruto's highest point of 6 feet grew to 7 feet, which grew to 8 feet. Shikamaru stared, shock flooding his features. Just how much stamina did this boy have?_

_Naruto repeatedly got his body smashed into the ground with each failure. Each fall got harsher and harsher on his body as he progressed, as the distance he fell would get larger and larger. Despite this, however, he would always get up, a fiery determination gleaming in his blue eyes, and try it again._

_Shikamaru grinned. 'I knew this was a good idea to wait for Naruto.', he thought contentedly. 'At this rate, I'll have an excuse to be here all night.'_

_The sun fell, and the bright sky dimmed to darkness as night took over. Kurenai and a tired Ino walked back over to where Shikamaru was sitting._

_Kurenai glanced over at the tree where Naruto was working, and her jaw dropped. There were so many slashes on the tree that, on the side of the tree Naruto was training, it seemed that there was more area of bark that was removed than bark still on the tree._

_Speaking of Naruto, where was he? Ino and Kurenai looked around, but their search was cut short when they heard cursing. They spun back to looking at the tree, and saw Naruto fall down from the middle of the tree, where he had been obscured by the leaves, and hit the ground with a resounding thud._

_As Kurenai walked towards Naruto, she could even see traces of blood on the ground. Naruto had cuts and bruises decorating his face. Both of his eyes had black rings around them._

"_Trainings over for the day.", she said to her team. Naruto nodded at her, and then got up, walking back to his beginning spot to try the exercise again. Kurenai gave him a cold look. "I said – trainings over. Naruto, you've hurt yourself enough."_

_Naruto looked at her, and Kurenai was taken aback at the amount of fight he seemed to still have in him. Kurenai sighed, knowing that Naruto wouldn't quit._

"_At least promise me you'll go home soon.", Kurenai said to him, shaking her head as Shikamaru and Ino walked back to their respective clan compounds._

"_We'll see, won't we?", Naruto said back to her, with a small determined smile. Kurenai sighed again, and couldn't help but smile at Naruto's willpower._

"_Team, meet me on the roof like usual at 0800, and we'll resume training."_

Naruto growled as he looked upwards at the top of the tree. He looked to his left and his right, at his Kage Bunshins who were training as well. He growled and looked back at the top of the tree. Clenching the kunai handle in his fist tightly, he ran back at the tree.

The sun was in midrise, and the cool, crisp morning air was refreshing. And in the center of Konoha, Kurenai Yuuhi was a very impatient woman. She was standing on the roof of the Academy, with Shikamaru and Ino, but with no overexcited loudmouth brat. It was nearly 8:30, and Naruto still hadn't arrived.

Finally, she slapped her forehead in frustration. "We're going back to the same place as yesterday. Shikamaru, I'll teach you the new exercise I was showing Ino yesterday. It's called water walking. We'll just have to get started without Naruto."

They chatted about theories about where Naruto might be when they reached the same area. All of their jaws dropped. Rather hard.

The tree that Naruto had been working on was nearly completely skinned of exterior bark. Not only that tree, but the trees around it as well. Pools of sweat were on the ground, and trails of blood were there as well. There was the kunai that Naruto used for marking his progress, and its tip was completely dull. Naruto-sized holes indents in the ground were littered all around the trees.

Dirty footprints were on multiple bare trees, all over the sides. But they looked around – where was Naruto? They searched around, but to no avail. Then they heard a distinct snoring noise from above them, and looked up.

Lying down on the highest branch of the tree, with one of his arms draped over the top of the tree itself, was an unconscious Naruto.

The trio couldn't do anything but smile up at Naruto, who had a peaceful expression on his face, despite looking like he just ran the marathon and then got beat up by thugs.

"He just doesn't know when to quit.", Kurenai murmured, and the other two nodded slightly in agreement.

A breeze picked up, causing the tree Naruto was resting in to shake slightly. His unconscious form suddenly dropped from the top of the tree and then smashed into the ground, hard – an extremely painful wakeup call. The team winced sympathetically.

Naruto groaned. He picked up his head and blinked a couple times. He had bags under his eyes, and his eyeballs were bloodshot. His hair was littered with leaves, and his clothes were ripped in countless places.

"Naruto, are you alright?", the crimson-eyed jounin rushed over to him.

"I-I-I h-have to finish… my… training…", Naruto mumbled, his eyes drooping in exhaustion.

Shikamaru and Ino just gaped at him. "He's all worn out and all he can think about is training? What planet did he come from?"

Kurenai looked at him as if he had grown another head.

"Something tells me you need this day off to rest.", she said firmly. Naruto just moaned, clutching his arm in response.

Shikamaru just chuckled as Kurenai dragged Naruto to his apartment.

"And they said a little hard work never killed anyone."


	9. The Power of a Gaki

This is my first fanfic!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

You could call this an intermediate chapter, I suppose.

I really appreciate the reviews – especially the constructive criticism. I'll keep those in mind for the future! Thanks!

Naruto cracked his knuckles as he resumed his tedious training routine. No longer would Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage, be the dead last in his age group. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. He put a hand through his hair, making the bright yellow spikes bounce.

Naruto adjusted his blue shirt carefully, as the sweat on his body had made the clothing stick uncomfortably.

He resumed his repetitions of the same taijutsu katas over and over again that Kurenai-sensei had spent the last couple of days embedding into the memories of his genin squad.

_Step forward. Punch straight out. Retract. Step back. Shift center of gravity. Quick spin…_

His blows landed in a quick array on the poor beaten wooden training dummy in front of him. He made a misstep, which made him stumble slightly and smack his forehead on the middle of the dummy, but he did not let that deter him. Naruto was even more pushed onwards by the fact that today would be the day that he proved himself against one of the prodigies of his age group, the Uchiha, Sasuke.

_"Oi, Kurenai.", Kakashi said as he sipped his cup of sake. Kurenai looked at him questioning, taking a sip of her own from her tea._

"_How's the Uzumaki gaki doing?", he asked straightforwardly. Kurenai was taken aback at the strange question._

"_He's moving along nicely.", she responded. "He's a little rough on the taijutsu katas, but he's definitely progressing. His chakra control is still below average because of his huge chakra reserves, but its getting there-…"_

"_I propose a duel.", Kakashi cut in sharply. "My Uchiha Sasuke against your gaki."_

_Kurenai raised an eyebrow. This was something she was not expecting._

"_Why should Naruto fight your Uchiha?", she said, slightly offended that he was treating Naruto like a dog used for dog fighting._

_Kakashi grinned. "We'll bet on it. If I win, you have to go on a date with me." Kurenai's eyebrows rocketed sky high._

"_What if I say no to the entire fight idea?", Kurenai asked, giving Kakashi a threatening look._

"_Well then", Kakashi said with a mock sense of finality. "By doing that you are proving that you don't believe in your student. That you don't think that the gaki could beat Sasuke. That you think it was a bad idea to pick the dead last." Kakashi was smirking at her, knowing she was in a tight situation here. And Kakashi knew that Kurenai would never forgive herself if she took such a blow to her honor._

_Kurenai glared at him. "Fine.", she said reluctantly. Kakashi grinned._

"_But I get to make my demands as well."_

_Kakashi raised his own eyebrow. "Okay, what will I have to do if your gaki wins?"_

"_I get to burn some of your smut.", she smirked back at him. Kakashi choked on his sake, before realizing that Sasuke was never going to lose this._

_He slammed his fist on the table. The two jounin-sensei snarled and glared at each other in the eyes. "You're on.", they said in unison._

Watching him slightly nervously, not wanting to lose the bet, Kurenai oversaw Naruto's training with unusually close attention. Each time Naruto made even the smallest mistake, Kurenai would help him, showering him with help.

She straightened out his stance. She moved his fist downwards slightly, changed the angle that his feet were facing.

It was almost hilarious how much Kurenai suddenly resembled an over protective parent in her desperation to show up Kakashi. Each time Naruto winced in pain, whether it be by awkwardly hitting his hand, or anything of the sort, Kurenai would be all over him, examining his wounds, treating them with utmost care, and making sure he was alright.

She was constantly spouting off tips and advice, and Naruto nodded as he absorbed the new information like a sponge.

The sun was hovering just above the horizon of Konoha. The bright yellow sun was surrounded by a range of colors from blood-red shades to tinges of yellow. The cloud cover was scarce, the white puffy clouds hanging around in the sky, their edges seemingly fading into the backdrop that was the sunset.

Kurenai's attention perked up as two figures entered team 8's designated training ground without warning. One was a masked jounin, his silver hair sticking up to one side not unlike a pineapple. He was reading an orange covered piece of literature, an abomination to all kunoichi – Icha Icha Paradise. Standing right next to him, emitting waves of arrogance, was a younger and smaller boy. He had black hair in a hairdo resembling the silver haired jounin's in a way. He wore a short sleeve blue shirt with the signature Uchiha crest imprinted on the back. His arms were folded, and his eyes glared piercingly ahead.

Sasuke's mouth turned at the corners into a small, leering smirk. Naruto returned the look with a confident version of his own.

Clearing the middle of the grounds for the duo, the fighters' respective teams stood off in the sidelines, watching intently. Kurenai had a slightly worried expression on her face, but she masked most of it with false confidence. Kakashi just gave off his normal indifferent face, but he was secretly worried as well.

"The duel between Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto will be an all out fight.", Kakashi said. "Anything is allowed, but we will step in if it goes too far."

The opponents nodded, not once taking their calculating eyes off of each other.

"Begin!"

Sasuke stood, unmoving, waiting for Naruto to make the first move. This was his trademark attitude – waiting… watching for an opportunity… patiently observing his opponents' movements, looking for a screw up. On the other hand, Naruto was a fiery individual who himself felt that making the first move was a strong idea.

Naruto quickly flung a ninja star, targeting Sasuke's face. Sasuke waited patiently, and then ducked under the ranged weapon, drawing kunai of his own. He threw them at Naruto, who promptly ducked and weaved around them, in his mind believing this to be Sasuke testing Naruto's own abilities. Unfortunately for Naruto, however, he did not notice the strings of ninja wire wrapped around the shuriken, which stretched all the way to Sasuke's hands. With some nimble finger movements resembling a puppeteer, Sasuke entangled Naruto in a web of wire. Sasuke took his opportunity to throw more shuriken at Naruto's vulnerable body.

Not wasting precious seconds, Naruto drew a shuriken of his own, and slashed horizontally, creating a gash in the web – an opening, before leaping out of the way as the incoming weapons impaled the ground that he was just lying.

Naruto quickly landed and formed a seal, shouting, _"KAGE BUNSHIN!"_. Instantly, 9 solid shadow clones of Naruto appeared, and they all charged at Sasuke, kunais in hand.

Sasuke showed off his proficiency with taijutsu by dodging around the kicks and punches of the clones, while applying his own blows to them to make them dispel.

Naruto snarled, frustration building in him. Letting his emotions get a hold of him, an action frowned upon by shinobi, he channeled chakra to his fist, and ran towards Sasuke with the intent to punch him in the face to kingdom come. Sasuke ducked the punch fluidly, and jumped upwards before Naruto could retract back into a normal stance, his knee connecting with Naruto's chin with an audible crack.

Naruto flew backwards, and slid across the ground. Kakashi turned to Kurenai and said teasingly, "When do you want me to pick you up?".

Kurenai glared at him and growled. "It's not over yet, Kakashi."

Naruto jumped to his feet and wiped some blood off his mouth – the knee strike had caused him to brutally bite his tongue. He drew another kunai and held it up in a defensive stance, thinking carefully.

Sasuke, using this pause, decided to prove to Naruto that Naruto was bested in ninjutsu as well. Forming some quick hand seals, he jumped high in the air before shouting.

"_Fire Style: PHEONIX FIRE JUTSU!"_

Multiple small fireballs flew out of Sasuke's mouth, all aimed at Naruto, who found himself having a hard time dodging them all.

Sasuke grinned victoriously as he noticed Naruto's discomfort. He repeated the jutsu, this time throwing kunai with the fireballs.

Naruto was unable to dodge the entire onslaught. A kunai knife slashed him in the leg, and a fireball breezed by his shoulder, burning him through his shirt painfully.

Kurenai grimaced as she watched the battle. It seemed as though her student was in trouble, here. She herself was studying Sasuke, trying to find a weak spot that Naruto could take advantage of.

Naruto ran towards Sasuke again, to which Sasuke smirked, anticipating another attempt at a reckless attack. 'Is the dobe trying the same attack again?'

The 'dead last' suddenly skidded to a stop right in front of his adversary, a large grin plastered all over his face. Sasuke, as well as all of the onlookers, were stunned by this sudden act. 'What is he planning?', Kurenai and Kakashi thought together.

Sasuke waited for an attack, which never came. His posture was in one of a tense, defensive position. His legs were in solid relative position to his body that would allow for flexible movement, giving him the ability to dodge in any direction that he needed to.

After a couple seconds of just staring, Sasuke looked annoyed. His muscles only tensed up more as Naruto's grin stretched with excitement.

"What are you smiling at, dobe?", Sasuke scoffed.

Naruto, unfazed, raised an arm, pointing down at the middle of Sasuke's shirt. Sasuke looked down, examining his shirt carefully… there didn't seem to be anything wrong with…

Naruto brought his finger up in a sharp arc, catching Sasuke smartly on the nose. Sasuke staggered back in pain, but mostly out of shock and anger. Naruto just smiled even larger. "Fell for it.", he said in a sing song tune.

He walked up as Sasuke was still recoiling from the unorthodox attack, and burrowed his fist in Sasuke's stomach. Sasuke slid backwards, landing on the ground painfully, his brain trying to grasp what just happened.

Kakashi looked at the fight with amusement and disbelief. Kurenai, on the other hand, suddenly had a smile playing on her lips.

"It seems even in combat Naruto can't keep his trickster side in check."

Sasuke coughed up blood as he got up, staggering. He had been keeping up a cool attitude the entire time, but this blatant show of disrespect had pushed Sasuke past his limits. He drew a shuriken, fire blazing in his eyes and charged, raging, at Naruto. Naruto sneered at him, slightly surprised that Sasuke would resort to such a mundane type attack. He drew his own kunai, and charged at Sasuke, channeling chakra through his fists and his feet.

They met in the middle, and an explosion of dust blocked the audience's view. The dust cleared, and the body of Naruto flew from the contact point. He tumbled and rolled on the ground, and then was still. Kurenai let shock flood her features.

Was Naruto… dead? Sasuke approached the unmoving body of Naruto with surprise, and slight dread. Was this going to be his first kill?

"I-is it over?", he asked carefully.

Kakashi seemed just as surprised as Sasuke and Kurenai. The body disappeared in a poof of gas. Sasuke's shock switched to rage. "A Kage Bunshin?"

Sasuke sensed someone behind him. He whipped his head around, just in time to see Naruto's chakra enhanced fist meet his torso for the second time that day. This time, however, Sasuke flew back and landed on the ground and he didn't stir. Naruto walked over to his fallen opponent and saw the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest. Sasuke was out cold.

Naruto grinned and pumped out his fist in victory.

Shikamaru just shook his head. "Troublesome blondes…"

Ino, realizing that her teammate had just defeated her _Sasuke-kun_ just gave a half hearted cheer of approval.

Team 7 was completely overwhelmed with surprise. This was a battle that had turned out different from anyone would have thought.

Kakashi froze as he watched his unconscious student.

Up in the Hokage Tower, Jiraiya was grinning hugely as the Sandaime forked over a huge stack of yen. "Goddamnit, Jiraiya. I actually thought the Uchiha would win."

Kurenai yelped with glee. She felt relief and true happiness flood her system. She dashed over to her injured student, glomping him swiftly, causing his eyes to bug out.

Promptly, without any before thought, she planted a kiss on his cheek – a kiss full of gratitude, like one a damsel in distress would give to her knight in shining armor.

Naruto's face turned beet red, and his internal systems were whirring and buzzing madly, trying to process what had just happened. Finally, they came to only one plausible continuation – and that was to pass out. And that he did. Much to the amusement of all the onlookers, Naruto fell forward, landing on his face.

Kakashi, with Sasuke in his arms, stomped away from the scene, his face white. He was practically exploding of killing intent. The other 2 members of the genin team were following him slowly, quietly, not saying anything, misinterpreting his anger to be disappointment that his star student had lost.

They couldn't have been more wrong. In his mind, he was replaying the scene where Kurenai was glomping and kissing Naruto.

'That lucky bastard…!'


	10. Happy Birthday?

This is my first fanfic. How many times have I said that now?

I really appreciate the reviews & such.

I decided that I'll respond to some of them, I guess.

**EkFlamation: **"i liked what i read so far but dont u think kurenai is too trusting about the fact that iruka is a good guy when mizuki just turned traitor" (referring to Chapter 5)

I don't really know. In general the jounin and such are on good terms with Iruka. I think they trust them. It also helps that Iruka is in no shape to be in a fight when Kurenai sees him, meaning that Kurenai doesn't have to expect any kind of a fight.

**Innerstruggle88: **"Truthfully your portrayal of Naruto flung me for a loop, in chapters 2 & 3 you showed Naruto as a practically broken child who was distrustful of others because of the torture he has had to indure. But in chapter 4 he suddenly becomes the energetic and a ** Naruto from canon for no explained reason."

You're absolutely right. I don't really know how I missed that in my proofreading, but in future fanfics and future chapters I'll make sure not to leave huge gaping holes in the story like that one.

**Crypton89: **"Kind of surprising that naruto was able to dispel the genjutsu that effectively" (Referring to chapter 6)

Actually, in the story it was Shikamaru who dispelled the genjutsu, but reading back over the chapter, I see that one would immediately think Naruto did it.

Thanks for your reviews (again), and I'll try an update whenever I can!

On another note, the number of chapters has hit double digits! Woohoo!

On a third note, anyone want to tell me what they thought of the genin test idea? It's based off Kakashi's test, but I decided to go for a more unique idea. Thoughts on that are appreciated as well.

* * *

Kurenai Yuuhi was standing, her hands holding a box wrapped carefully with orange wrapping paper, all tied together with a design of blue ribbons, in front of the door to Naruto's apartment. Orange, she knew, was Naruto's favorite color, if the jumpsuits did not express that clearly enough.

Standing to her immediate right, was Shikamaru with a calm expression on his face. He was leaning against the wall, also carrying a present. His was covered in green packaging, with a fancy orange ribbon fixed around it in a tight knot.

To her left, was Ino, barely containing her excitement at the prospect of surprising Naruto with their gifts. She was standing attentively next to Kurenai, back straight and legs shaking slightly.

Judging just by the door to Naruto's apartment, it seemed he was not a very tidy person. A quick inspection of the hinges showed that the door was tilted slightly as the hinges were not well crafted. The door itself reeked slightly of ramen, as was expected of our yellow haired character. There was a huge dent in the center of the doorway, as if struck by a blunt object.

Naruto's team, without Naruto of course, had already rung the doorbell to the apartment. There was no sign of life inside, and the team, after a couple minutes of further waiting, decided to leave their presents and cards inside the apartment and depart.

Kurenai decided to test her luck and try the doorknob to his apartment. As she applied a slight pressure, she was bewildered when the entire door abruptly fell on the ground, the hinges hanging uselessly.

The genin team and the sensei were shocked indefinitely when they saw the quality of the insides of the apartment. There were ramen cups on the floor, yes, but some of them had been carelessly trampled on. There seemed to be a huge array of dirty footprints moving in directions all around the apartment.

Any objects within were completely smashed and destroyed. The walls were spray painted with crude designs, such as one resembling a fist with the middle finger extended. Scratched in words, perhaps with a weapon such as a kunai, were inscribed in various places around the room. Some of the phrases included "demon" and "get the fuck out of the village".

Looking around, they seemed to be standing in what was a small lobby. There were 2 doorways, one leading to a kitchen, which from where they were standing, looked in disarray as well, and another leading to a bedroom, which was producing a revolting mixture of the scents of blood and metal. The entrance to the bedroom had signs of a struggle, if the random kunai sticking out of the ceiling and walls, and the bloodstains and the faint remains of chakra from jutsu that Kurenai could detect, were any clue.

Hot tears came to the eyes of the trio as they realized what had happened. Unlike Kurenai, Ino and Shikamaru did not know the reason for what just happened. They wanted to scream. No one deserved to be treated like this. Someone apparently, probably multiple people, from the looks of it, had broken into Naruto's apartment, and had engaged in some sort of fight, most likely with Naruto himself.

They were about to go inspect some more when they heard the sound of muffled sobbing coming from the bedroom. Instinctively, the three of them dashed towards the sound to meet a truly despicable sight, but not before carefully placing their gifts on a broken down table.

There was Naruto, bound and gagged to his bed, clothes frayed and shredded in various places with scars and beatings all over his body. His face and torso were abundant with disgustingly purple bruises, and blood was dripping madly from his cuts and wounds. He was bleeding all over his bedsheets. There was a sickening pile of vomit mixed with the blood. Tears stained his cheeks. His black eyes were closed, and he seemed to curl up in a ball to make himself as small as possible when the newcomers came in. He did not seem to realize that it was his own team that was watching him.

On the ground, littered, were multiple objects, ranging from sharp to blunt, with amounts of Naruto's blood on the edges of each, showing by themselves a brutal recent history of their usage.

There was visibly red chakra flooding out from various areas of his body, quickly and efficiently mending wounds.

"N-Naruto!", Ino spluttered suddenly, breaking the silence. Naruto's eyes flew open quickly at the familiar voice, and then gazed at them, with hope and sheer terror and pain mixed together in a horrid combination in his eyes. The heavy hearts of his teammates were only made worse when they saw his expression.

"Who did this to you?", Shikamaru demanded angrily, drawing a kunai and holding it, fingers wrapped around the handle ready to go on a man hunt.

Naruto, still unspeaking, just looked at them with sad filled blue eyes, and then shook his head. He tilted his head slightly, as if pointing to his bindings, and then winced in pain as if the movement had triggered one of his wounds.

Without another word, Ino and Kurenai jumped forward to aid Naruto. Ino drew a kunai and sawed away at the ropes and straps that restricted Naruto, and Kurenai swiftly looked him over to assess the damage.

She hastily checked his pulse and vitals, and then nodded, relief settling in.

"He's suffered massive damage, and we should get him to the hospital, but he'll definitely be alright."

Shikamaru's grip on his weapon loosened, but was still rather tight.

"Good work, Kurenai.", a familiar voice said from behind them.

They all spun around to see a silver haired ANBU crouching on the window sill, twirling a shuriken. The ANBU took off his mask, revealing himself as Kakashi.

"Sorry I'm late.", Kakashi said. "I was assigned to protect Naruto today. When I saw his attackers leaving, I went after them. Unfortunately, they were shinobi, which explains why Naruto was overcome, and they got away."

Ino finished severing the bindings, and Naruto groaned in pain at the sudden freedom of his limbs. He agonizingly attempted to get back on his feet, but he collapsed right as he got up, showing that his legs had been roughly dealt with.

In a swift movement, Kurenai crouched down, and threw Naruto onto her back.

"I'll get him to the hospital, Kakashi.", she said. The jounin nodded.

White. Blindingly white lights struck Naruto in the eyes glaringly, like someone had plunged a million sharp needles straight into his retinas. He moaned as he shielded his eyes from the light. Adjusting quickly to the light, he removed his arms, reexposing his eyes to the bright light that didn't seem to affect him as much as before. He noted that each arm was wrapped in bandage strips, and that a slight tinge of red had appeared on either one. Shaking his head a small amount, he removed the dull ache that had been in his head.

He blinked and wiped his eyes to see the worried faces of his team. It would have been humorous for him to see all of those people making those same expressions at the same time if it hadn't been for the graveness of the situation.

He cracked a quick grin, and the thick tension in the room dwindled down as the other people in the room sighed in relief.

Shikamaru shook his head dumbly. "Despite that, you're still smiling like nothing has happened." Naruto raised an eyebrow.

Naruto smirked. "You get used to it after the first hundred times."

Ino let her jaw drop at the number. He _must _be exaggerating. But then again, it _was _his birthday. No need to press the subject and depress him even further.

After getting over his shock, Shikamaru grinned at him before shaking his head again. "Mendokusai…"

Everyone was silent for a short period, before Ino blurted out, "Happy birthday, Naruto!"

Naruto stopped suddenly, looking at her with a confused yet pensive expression on his face. Naruto felt a strong sense of déjà vu, but he passed it off, seeing as he didn't remember celebrating his birthday ever before.

The feeling didn't go away, it even strengthened, when Kurenai pulled out her present and handed it to Naruto. As he unwrapped it, he found a book. _Genjutsu for Novices_. He smiled with glee. He didn't exactly care for genjutsu, but he enjoyed the present either way – it was the thought that counted, to him. It was the first time anyone had given him a present.

Ino handed him a small package the size of a playing card. Taking off the outer layer of packaging, he revealed a small coupon to Ichiraku Ramen. Naruto smiled even bigger, and then he took a package from Shikamaru.

He unwrapped the wrapping paper to expose a shogi board. It was handsomely carved, and in the bottom right, in a distinct cursive handwriting that would please even a typographist, was his name. Naruto Uzumaki.

He looked up at the three of them, with a grateful grin, a smile which they returned, happy that he had liked the gifts.

"And what will _you_ give Naruto for his birthday?", Kurenai asked, turning her head behind her, talking seemingly to no one.

Dropping a genjutsu, Kakashi stepped out, rubbing the back of his neck in nervousness. He hadn't really gotten Naruto a present. He desperately glanced around, some way to get out of this predicament. His gaze finally rested on the orange book in his hand.

Kurenai's eyes narrowed when she saw what Kakashi's body language was implying, that he was going to give Naruto his first taste of Icha Icha Paradise

Minutes later, Naruto and his team were chatting animatedly. On the ground, Kakashi was drooling. It seemed as though the dango had returned.


	11. The Dobe and the Teme

This is my first fanfic! Hope you enjoy nonetheless.

**Disclaimer**: If your eyes explode out of sheer awesomeness while reading my fanfic, I can't be held accountable. That and I don't own Naruto.

You might be relieved that I'm finally releasing a 'normal sized' chapter.

* * *

He was standing atop the shingled rooftop of a house, whose, he did not know, nor did he care in the slightest. His spiky black hair waved in the breeze as his dark, malicious eyes gazed upwards, his nostrils taking in the cool, calm evening air.

The crescent moon in the sky was prominent, almost in an in-your-face kind of way. It was the center of the night, its light overwhelming that of the stars around it. The Uchiha shifted, brooding deeply. He folded his arms. The short sleeves of his shirt fluttered slightly as a new gust came in.

'How did the Uzumaki beat me?', he thought, grimacing.

His mind replayed the entire event over and over again in his mind. He analyzed his moves, and compared them in relative to Naruto's own. Sasuke's taijutsu was superior. That much was noticeable.

His moves were more fluid, more powerful, more threatening. His motions were excellent, the combination of sheer genius and hard work. He executed the katas of taijutsu flawlessly.

His ninjutsu was simply better, as well. Naruto showed surprising proficiency in the Kage Bunshin, which required massive chakra reserves and hours of training, both of which Naruto had and gave, but that one trick was not enough. Naruto was not unlike a trick pony, who only had one move that they could do over and over again. Sasuke not only had more forceful jutsus at his arsenal, his arsenal simply outnumbered and dominated Naruto's limited own one.

His fire jutsus had been practiced extensively, and Naruto had even been caught in the blast of some of them.

It wasn't Sasuke's accuracy, either. His usage of ninja wire and shuriken were spot on, and Naruto's own attempts at ranged weaponry had been easily dodged as well. What had he done wrong, then?

Sasuke winced as he replayed Naruto's childish trick that included flicking him in the nose and then landing a decent sized blow on him. He clenched his fists in frustration.

He had been fooled by a trick, and had lost because of another. He wasn't frustrated at himself as much, even though he was to a certain extent. He was frustrated that it wasn't something you could train to overcome. It wasn't as if he wasn't strong enough to beat Naruto. It wasn't that his taijutsu needed work, or that his ninjutsu wasn't effective enough – it was evident in the combat that it was. Because if it had been, that would be something Sasuke could train to get over. But this was not like that.

He grunted uneasily. There was only one possible continuation. Fight more with Naruto. He couldn't ask any other shinobi of Konoha; none of them had a style similar to Naruto's unpredictable one. None of them would be able to replicate the randomness, the erraticness, of Naruto's attacks and movements. What if Itachi was any bit like Naruto? Sasuke would be easily defeated, and that could not be a possibility. That left only Naruto himself. Contented with his simplistic approach, he leapt off the roof top eagerly, dislocating a shingle, and flew off towards the training grounds, where he suspected he might find the gaki.

Despite what Team 8 thought, as well as the jounins and the senseis, Naruto was not a fast learner. That should have been clear given his disability to even be regarded as average in his age group in his early Academy days. The combination of his incapacity to learn new concepts as fast as his peers, with the lack of attention that anyone would give him made him that way.

However, Naruto got to where he was by sheer effort and grit. He stood firm and trained as if it was the last day on the planet. He would learn at half the pace, yes, but to make up for that, he would drag himself through more than triple the training time, more than making up for his bad faults.

He would train long past the time another shinobi would have went home. No one knew of his extra training time, hence, they thought he was just naturally a fast learner.

He struck fiercely at the human-resembling training dummy. He landed a quick, but deadly palm blow to its chest, cracking the outer layer audibly. He then twirled around, throwing a bone shattering punch to the dummy's face, sending the head clean off.

Dropping down to a crouching position, he extended a leg and spun in a circle, striking the training dummy on the side of its leg where the kneecap would be located. With a loud snap, the object dislocated, and fell with a dull thump onto the ground.

Naruto fell to his knees, panting with exhaustion. He had been going through his rigorous training katas for days on end, getting less than 5 hours of sleep every single day. Something like that would cause most people to pass out from exhaustion. But Naruto wasn't like most people.

He stopped in his tracks, however, when he felt a presence behind him. He spun around quickly, drawing a kunai, and springing up in a defensive, low position. His posture was tense. His right arm, whose hand was holding the kunai, was jutted out, waving the kunai threateningly. His other arm, whose hand was balled up in a tight fist, was held below his waist and shook slightly, indicating that it too was a threat and shouldn't be thought nothing of.

He relaxed slightly when he recognized his assailant. Sasuke smirked at him.

"Why are you here, teme?", Naruto barked out harshly, suspicious that someone would be at the training grounds with him so late at night. Despite his inconsiderate words, and the calling Sasuke a teme, his expression betrayed that he didn't feel much anger, although he wanted to appear that way to scare off any potential attacks.

Sasuke scowled at the insult, but quickly composed himself. "Dobe", he replied, slightly angrily. "Fight me."

Naruto was taken aback at this request. If one would put their ear to his head, they'd hear the noises of his brain whirring and his gears turning, which was an indication of him trying to look underneath the underneath, one thing Kurenai-sensei had bashed into his team's heads.

He finally came to a conclusion. He would fight, of course. He acknowledged Sasuke's strength, albeit unwillingly and although he would never admit it, for fear of his own honor. What he did not know was that Sasuke was the same way, accepting Naruto's own power, but not declaring it outright.

He nodded, to which Sasuke's smirk deepened. Naruto looked at him for a second, and then he dropped the kunai, hoping to try his new taijutsu skills out, and relaxed his stance into a more professional, shinobi like one. He straightened his back, and put his hands in front of him in a very versatile way.

It was seemingly the perfect stance. His hands were not far apart from each other, meaning that if the situation called for it, he could form hand seals with minimum lag. His hands were not too far ahead of him or raised too high that he would not be able to defend himself if an enemy were to get underneath his protruding defense. His hands were not so low that he invited a frontal assault to the face. This was another thing that had taken him days on end of training to master this seemingly simple thing.

Sasuke formed a position not unlike Naruto's own, except his being slightly more aggressive. His hand moved slightly towards his kunai pouch, but then stopped himself, thinking better of it.

Looking up at Naruto, he said calmly, "Taijutsu only? Hand to hand combat, no weapons, no ninjutsu, genjutsu, etc."

Nodding, Naruto charged at Sasuke, who struck up a more defensive pose, his arms ready to parry the incoming blow. Naruto threw a strong punch, but Sasuke feinted backwards, spinning around in a wild but controlled fashion, before lunging his foot into Naruto's stomach, causing the blonde to stagger backwards at the counter attack.

Naruto grinned, knowing that Sasuke was a good opponent to face, and then charged again. They traded blows, and Sasuke was surprised to find that Naruto had drastically advanced in his taijutsu, but was still slightly lacking.

Naruto did managed to land some blows on the Uchiha, but the prodigy was expertly able to, at the very least, use chakra to push Naruto's fists and feet to less sensitive areas of his body, causing the hits to hurt and hinder him less. Naruto, however, was unaware of Sasuke's 'shield' of chakra, and was growing slightly frustrated. His own body was taking more damage than Sasuke's, but he was able to dodge and block many of the incoming attacks.

Once again, emotions taking the better of him, Naruto flew towards Sasuke one last time, who smiled. "This match is over.", he said, and Naruto realized he had fallen into a trap, slightly too late.

Sasuke sidestepped Naruto's charge, used the heel of his foot to purposely trip Naruto, who lost his balance. Sasuke lunged at Naruto, and successfully grappled him, pinning Naruto down onto the ground.

"This match is over, dobe.", Sasuke said, sneering. Naruto nodded and put a hand up, signaling his surrender.

Sasuke got off Naruto, and put a hand out, helping the blonde to his feet. Naruto took the hand graciously, and then dusted himself off, heading home. Before he left, however, he turned around one last time, looking Sasuke dead in the eyes.

"Tomorrow, same time?", he asked, a hint of amusement on his face. Sasuke's own expression matched the amusement, and then nodded.

"I hope you put up more of a challenge then you did tonight.", Sasuke replied, letting a grin wash over his face.

Naruto stomped on the ground in slightly false frustration, and then he pointed an accusing finger at Sasuke. "Tomorrow night I'll crush you! Just you wait! Believe it!"

Sasuke smirked at Naruto's antics, and then nodded once more and swiftly ran from the training ground, headed back towards the Uchiha compound. Naruto looked at Sasuke's back, and then sighed with anticipation for the next day's spar. He headed home as well. The time was 3 in the morning.

Time quickly passed by, and before he knew it, he was sitting on top of the Academy Roof. The sun was in the sky, reclaiming its rights to the sky from the moon, who had hastily retreated back to its unknown shelter. It shone brightly, bathing all of Konoha in its light and glory.

Naruto was lying on the ground in a Shikamaru-like fashion, staring up at the skies lazily. It seemed as though his best friend had rubbed off on him, somewhat. Shikamaru himself was sitting cross-legged on a wall, watching the shadows of the various items on the flat Academy rooftop. Ino herself was munching on a small rice ball patiently, obviously in thought.

Kurenai was watching Naruto intently, sensing something was off. Naruto was still a loudmouth, but today, like the past couple days, he had been slightly quieter, although still louder than the rest of them. She noted the bags under Naruto's eyes. It was almost as if he was exhaust-…

Her thoughts were sharply cut off by the obnoxious Naruto expressing his opinion to Shikamaru. "When I become Hokage, I'm going to put ramen stands all over…", he stopped as he stifled a yawn.

'Yep', Kurenai thought. 'Definitely exhausted.'

"Today, like normal", Kurenai stated clearly, ", we will be continuing our individual training. I will oversee your training, and will help you when necessary. If you need help, just ask. We will be going to training grounds 8."

"Hai, sensei!", the three said, with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Shikamaru was working, reluctantly, on his chakra control and mainly, his endurance. He had great control over manipulating the shadows, but over long periods of time, his relatively small chakra storages would run out, and he'd become in trouble.

Kurenai was trying to work that out of him by forcing him to run laps, do push ups and crunches, and various physical exercises.

On the other hand, there was Ino. Her only jutsu that she could use, potentially, in battle, was her Mind Control Jutsu, which was rather slow and had serious repercussions if missed. Kurenai, like with Shikamaru, was making her increase her endurance, was beginning to teach her some simple jutsu, like the Kage Shuriken Bunshin no Jutsu.

For Naruto, she was improving his taijutsu dramatically by throwing kata after kata at him, making him master them.

She had high expectations, and demanded one hundred and ten percent all the time. She was surprised that despite his visible fatigue, Naruto still labored on, pushing his body to the maximum.

As Naruto did his laborious workout regime, he was pondering.

'People say that Kage Bunshin is awesome, and that I am great for learning it already.', he thought. 'But every time I use it, it's like it doesn't matter – since the chakra levels inside the clones are only fractions of my own, it makes them extremely weak…'

He feinted to the left, and then struck another dummy on the chin with a strong uppercut.

'Maybe I'm going at this wrong.', he mused. 'Maybe sending Kage Bunshin out in waves to try and overwhelm the enemy isn't a good way to use them. I know I can use them to boost my training, but I should go ask sensei and the old man.'

He finished off his kata with a strong blow to the neck of the dummy, which promptly let out a loud crack as the head bent backwards.

Hearing this, Kurenai decided it was time to take a break. She said loudly, "Okay team, I think it's time to break for lunch." Eagerly, Naruto jumped from the broken dummy to the spot where Kurenai was standing. Shikamaru walked over, slouching slightly. Ino walked over.

"Hai, sensei!"

They headed off to the famous dango restaurant in town, much to Naruto's disgust. Although he didn't say it out loud, he was inwardly cursing because he couldn't have ramen. But when Kurenai, "I'll pay this time. This'll be my treat.", he shrugged. Free food was free food, either way.

They were seated at a table, when a waitress walked over, and placed gently a tray of dango onto team 8's table. Naruto picked up one of the dango, taking it off the stick and examined it closely, squinting his eyes as he looked it over.

He smelled it, inhaling some of its scent, before taking an experimental bite. He chewed around, a pensive expression on his face, before taking a swallow.

The other members of his team sighed, relieved. They knew that if Naruto didn't like the food, he'd become quite a pain in the ass in his efforts to escape wherever they happened to be.

"Not bad", he commented, taking another bite. "Definitely not as good as ramen, but it's not horrible." Suddenly, a kunai knife flung out of nowhere, slicing him sharply on the cheek, drawing blood.

Naruto could only see purple hair as a kunoichi scrambled up to him, licking the blood off his cheek provocatively. He froze; he wanted to scream, to say something, but he was frozen solid. The kunoichi named Anko grinned a disturbing grin, making Naruto go slightly wide-eyed. Naruto found that he couldn't utter a single sound, or even harness a single thought, as his senses had caused his brain to temporary go into a strange overload and shut down on him. He could only sit there with a shocked and blank expression on his face as Anko finished cleaning up his wound. Shikamaru and Ino both froze at the strange antics of the newcomer, but Kurenai just looked ticked off.

"Anko-chan", she warned, shooting her a glare, causing Anko to pout and release Naruto, who suddenly found he was able to breath again as Anko moved away. He shuddered involuntarily as Anko gave him a slight wink, not visible to the others. He took in a large gasp of air, and had to grip the table tightly to steady himself. It seemed he didn't trust his motor functions at the moment.

She pouted. "You're no fun, Kure-chan", she said, folding her arms in mock annoyance, before smiling again, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Kurenai inwardly shivered slightly at the sudden smile, knowing some random thought must have passed through her mind. "Is this your boyfriend?"

Kurenai's cheeks tinged pink, before she calmed herself. "Anko-chan…", she repeated, with slightly more menace apparent in her tone.

Anko herself shivered slightly, knowing Kurenai's wrath, and knew she was pushing it when she leaned down and started whispering in Naruto's ear. Team 8 couldn't hear a single syllable she was saying, but could see their effects on Naruto, as Naruto suddenly turned from light pink to as red as a tomato. When Anko moved away from Naruto, a satisfied expression on her face, Naruto looked as if he would explode if he got any redder.

Kurenai was extremely curious. "Naruto, what did she say?"

Naruto looked at her, with shock and then terror on his features, before turning back to that sickly red color and fainting ungracefully, his face hitting the table with a loud thump.

Unfazed, Anko sauntered up, stole Naruto's dango, plopped it in her mouth before anyone could say anything, and then walked away humming a tune as if nothing had happened. Kurenai was glaring at Anko for doing something (she didn't know exactly what, but judging by Naruto's reaction, she got a general gist), to one of her students.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru was muttering "troublesome… troublesome… troublesome…" under his breath, as if it was a mantra.

They finished their lunch, and went back to training, while Naruto rested peacefully under a tree.

As time progressed, the bond between Sasuke and Naruto grew to a friendly rivalry, as they, as if it were a ritual, sparred in sole taijutsu on the same training ground at the same time every night, their only light source being the moonlight that lightly washed over the land.

You could not say the same thing about the bond between Naruto and his sensei, Kurenai, however. Naruto found that for the next couple weeks or so, he could not make eye contact with Kurenai without passing out, and could not act normally around her; he would always end up stuttering like Hinata did around him.


	12. A Strange Acquaintance

This is my first fanfic!

Sorry for not updating in a while, school has been getting to me… the next update shouldn't be _too_ far away! Hope for the best!

It also doesn't help that I had an epic writer's block for a while. This chapter was half forced, so I'm sorry if it has poor quality. I have the next couple chapters planned out, though, so expect better updating.

Once again, I'm sorry.

Keep the reviews coming , they are all appreciated.

* * *

'Release the chakra out of my feet carefully… maintain it… maintain it… careful now…'

Naruto's thoughts were brutally cut into by barely concealed, irritating perverted giggles. Losing concentration, he wobbled slightly, trying to regain his balance and focus, but failed and fell from the surface of the water, on which he was standing, into the hot, steaming pool.

Biting his lip sharply to stop himself from screaming like a child, he scrambled out of the pool, looking himself over, trying to see if he had been burned severely at all. He finished his self check up and glared at a hunched over old man with long, white hair who seemed to be looking through a hole in a wooden fence. He was giggling to himself, and periodically scribbling in a notebook.

This caused Naruto to be curious, as he did not know what the man was looking at. He walked up to the man in confusion, and tapped him repeatedly on the shoulder.

The man turned around, annoyed, and looked at him. "What do you want, gaki?"

Puffing his chest out indignantly, Naruto glared. "I am not a gaki!"

The man bent over, peering at Naruto from different angles, as if examining a lab experiment. Then he straightened up. "Yep. Definitely a gaki."

Naruto scowled, but then remembered why he was talking to the man.

"Hey, what were you looking at?"

The white haired man just gawked at him, and then pointed at the hole he was looking through. "See for yourself."

Naruto, curiosity at its peak, did just that. What he saw made him fly backwards, face red with embarrassment. As he lay on the ground, dazed, trails of blood leaking from his nose, only one thought was in his mind.

'T-t-that w-was K-Kurenai sen-sensei naked…'

He finally got up, shaking his head to rid himself of the perverted thoughts and in an attempt to forget what he had just saw. Raising an eyebrow at the man who had been intently staring through that hole earlier, he felt a small wave at anger.

This man was staring at his naked sensei? The nerve!

"You pervert!", he yelled threateningly, pointing an accusing finger at the man, who immediately tried to quiet Naruto down by clamping a hand down on said genin's mouth, muffling him from making any further noise.

There was an accompanying shriek, and the man sighed, knowing that the ladies in the bath house he had been spying on had heard Naruto and were running away from the threat.

He matched the glare that was on Naruto's face.

"Hey brat.", he said furiously. "Who do you think you are?"

They had a slight glaring contest, before Naruto folded his arms, and closed his eyes before confidently saying, "Uzumaki Naruto. I'm going to become Hokage some day. Believe it!"

The stranger's jaw dropped. 'Uzumaki?', he thought as he watched Naruto's antics. 'There's only one Uzumaki that had a fiery temper like that… Kushina… then that means that this Naruto is Minato's brat? That would explain the blond hair and the blue eyes… the kid looks like a spitting image of Minato! Well… apart from the whiskers… and the gaki-ness…'

"Ne… you haven't told me your name!", Naruto said.

"I am the great and famous sage of Myōbokuzan Mountain! The author of the best selling Icha Icha series and the Toad Sage, Jiraiya, one of the legendary sannin of Konoha!" Jiraiya said, before jumping into a funky stance. He stood on one leg, bending the other outwards while holding his open palms out and leaping forward and backwards.

Naruto's eyes bugged out, and then he blinked multiple times. "Are all the sannin as weird as you?"

A noticeable tick appeared suddenly on Jiraiya's forehead. "Respect your elders, gaki!", he shouted out angrily, before smashing a fist into Naruto's unprepared face. Naruto was sent reeling back, landing once again in the boiling waters that fed into the springs.

Yelping in pain, Naruto once again leapt out of the pool, once again drenched with water, and feeling like he had just been cooked in an oven. He charged at Jiraiya, seeing red.

"You're going to get it now, old man!", he shouted with anger, and then formed a familiar seal as multiple kage bunshin appeared, kunais drawn, approaching Jiraiya.

Jiraiya watched Naruto with interest. 'He knows Kage Bunshin already? This is an interesting twist.'

Forming seals of his own, Jiraiya placed an open palm on the ground, and smoke covered him up. As it cleared, it revealed Jiraiya sitting in a cross legged position on top of a medium sized orange frog.

The frog opened its mouth, and its tongue shot out, wrapping itself around one of Naruto's clones. It suddenly swung the clone around like a mace, smashing it into some of Naruto's other clones, making short work of Naruto's short lived army.

With a nod from Jiraiya, the frog dispelled itself and Jiraiya back flipped onto the ground with a loud clop.

In anger, Naruto charged forward with a kunai drawn. Jiraiya smirked at this.

'So easily angered, eh?' In order to tick off the already infuriated genin, he sidestepped the charge, allowing Naruto to miss a badly thrown punch, and lose his balance slightly, which Naruto barely recovered from.

Jiraiya followed up by planting the bottom of his foot in Naruto's turned back, forcing him off balance once again and making him fall flat on his face. Naruto got up, dusted himself off, and charged again. But before he could get close to Jiraiya, a cool, menacing voice was heard.

"You'd do best not attacking my student."

Turning sharply, they saw a mass of scantily clad kunoichi, each only wearing towels that didn't do very good at covering their entire bodies. Naruto gulped in nervousness when he realized that his sensei, Kurenai was the owner of the voice and in front.

Kurenai was holding a rather sharp blade, and was eyeing Jiraiya with a look on her face that promised infinite amounts of pain to the unlucky fellow that had become the target of her wrath. Paling, Jiraiya had a hunch who that unlucky fellow was.

If the kunoichi didn't look so evil and the situation wasn't so damn serious, it might've resembled some kind of perverted fantasy. But both conditions were met, and Jiraiya's life became a living hell as the kunoichi beat the life out of him.

After they were done, Kurenai turned around swiftly, glaring at Naruto, who himself paled, as he did not want to share the old pervert's fate.

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.", she said, lowering her weapon slightly while raising an eyebrow. Naruto gave a large gasp of relief. "Now scram, before I change my mind."

Naruto didn't need another invitation, and 'scrammed' off as fast as his legs could take him. The kunoichi, watching the fleeing genin, couldn't help but giggle slightly at the obvious effect they had on the poor boy.

The slight amusement was short lived, however, as one of the ninja noticed a beaten and bruised Jiraiya trying to crawl away.

Jiraiya froze as a kunai plunged into the stone ground in front of his face. He turned around, gulping as he saw the devilish expressions on the kunoichi's face one again.

"We're not done with you yet, _pervert_.", Anko said, licking the blade of a kunai rather provocatively.

Jiraiya quickly said his prayers as the beatings resumed.

The sun had begun to climb down from its apex in the sky. The normally blue cloudless skies were doused in hues and shades of red, orange and yellow. Tinges of darkness could be seen on the edges of the skies, foreshadowing the night time.

In the middle of training ground 8, was squad 8, all gathered.

Groaning, Naruto was the first to speak, as to be expected of a loudmouth. "Ne, sensei, why do we have to do all these lame D-rank missions?"

They had all come back from a hard laborious day of D-rank missions, each boring Naruto, as well as the rest of the crew, to their cores. Regardless of whether it was chasing the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat Tora, cleaning or washing houses and the interiors of stores, taking out the trash, etc, none of these could appease Naruto's wish for a challenge worthy of a true ninja.

Ino groaned in agreement. "I have to agree with the baka here." Naruto gave her a quick glare and a humph, and folded his arms. Kurenai stifled a giggle at the scene. Shikamaru gave a slight smirk and then turned away as his interest faded.

"All this work… it's such a drag…", Shikamaru mumbled, lying down on the ground and admiring the sunset above.

Kurenai's aching body wanted nothing else but to agree with them, but her shinobi side forced her to be the voice of reason in the situation. "Team 8, you are but genin. You need training exercises to help you guys get used to using teamwork. D-rank missions, albeit boring, are a sure way to train this without the penalty of death you might have in tougher missions."

Naruto scoffed. "If I have to do another D-rank mission, I'll explode!" He waved his arms to prove his point.

Kurenai smirked. "Lets put that theory to the test, shall we?" Naruto groaned again, dropping from a standing position onto the ground in a cross legged position next to Shikamaru.

Suddenly an all-too-familiar voice popped up. "Hey!"

A tick appeared in Naruto and Kurenai's foreheads appeared as they all turned to see the newcomer, Naruto and Kurenai recognizing the voice.

Jiraiya was standing there, waving to the team as he approached. He sweat dropped at the sight of Kurenai, who had just given him a sound pounding that morning. Kurenai, also reminiscing the event, cracked her knuckles threateningly, which made Jiraiya freeze for a moment.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at the strange greeting what he knew was one of the legendary sannin got, but passed it off before resuming his cloud watching with a softly said, "troublesome…"

Jiraiya raised his hands as if surrendering. "I'm here for Naruto."

That got everyone's attention, if the unexpected arrival of one of the sannin of Konoha had appeared hadn't.

"Naruto? What do you want him for?", Kurenai wondered out loud, curiously.

Jiraiya chuckled.

"Well the Hokage is getting up in years you know…", he began, but was cut off.

"SO I'M THE REPLACEMENT?!", Naruto leapt to his feet excitedly, pumping a fist in the air. The rest of the people there just stared at Naruto's sudden outburst.

"…no…", Jiraiya said, blinking, bursting Naruto's quickly inflated balloon of confidence.

Naruto pouted, and then sat back down, scratching the back of his head in slight disappointment. Ino slapped her forehead with an open palm, and Naruto retaliated by sticking his tongue out with a "nyeeeh".

"In any case", Jiraiya continued. "he is looking for a replacement, as Naruto brought up. He asked me, of course, since I'm just Jiraiya.", he said grinning, puffing his chest out and pointing at himself proudly. The squad raised eyebrows and gave him disbelieving looks, which made him pout like Naruto. "Hey… I'm not _that_ bad…", he whined.

He resumed a more serious tone and straightened up. "But, I declined, as I have other duties to attend to." There were a couple of snorts of disbelief.

"Like spying at the bath houses?", Kurenai and Naruto piped up, getting a sweat drop from Jiraiya.

He coughed loudly. "Yes…", he said in a small voice under his breath so that no one could really hear him, but then went back to his normal volume. "I am also the master of a huge spy network. I gather information on Konoha's enemies. I can't just become Hokage and stop that important job. The network is so knowledgeable that I can basically get info on almost anyone I wanted."

They all nodded at the explanation, but Kurenai was a little skeptical. She voiced her thoughts. "So what does this have to do with Naruto?"

Jiraiya coughed again. "I was getting to that. You see, I recommended one of my team mates, Tsunade."

"The medical specialist?", Shikamaru asked, getting a surprised look from the sannin.

"Looks like you, kid, know your stuff.", Jiraiya noted, before bopping Naruto playfully on the head.

"Unlike this gaki…", he murmured audibly, getting an indignant "hey!" from Naruto and snickers from the team.

"Yes, Tsunade, the medical specialist.", he continued. "Unfortunately, she left the village a while back, and no one knows where she is."

"What about your spy network?", Ino asked curiously.

"She's gone missing, and she's pretty well hidden. My spy network is extremely extensive, but most of the time we can't track her at all.", Jiraiya said nodding, emphasizing the phrase 'most of the time'. "One of my spies has given me a lead, and we know hazily where she might be headed next."

Nodding, Kurenai said, "You still haven't asked why Naruto is tied up in this whole mess."

Jiraiya grinned before clapping a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "What can I say? I've taken an interest in the gaki. We're going on a short training trip. He has potential, but he needs some work."

Kurenai raised an eyebrow, her temper growing slightly short. "I've been helping him for a while now, and he has been improving. Are you implying that I'm not a good teacher?". Her eye twitched dangerously at the possible implication. She clenched her fist subconsciously, a move that Jiraiya noted fearfully.

"Yeah!", Naruto exclaimed, defending his sensei. "Kurenai-sensei has been really helpful in helping me improve!" Kurenai gave him an appreciative smile.

Sweat dropping again, Jiraiya raised his hands in defeat. "Well, I've been requested to tutor Naruto for a short time. I decided I'd get started early."

"By whom?", the entirety squad 8 said in unison. Naruto was extremely curious, and in his mind he was guessing who would take an interest in his training. No one really cared about him very much… could it be the Hokage? His thoughts were interrupted by Jiraiya's response.

"By Naruto's father, of course.", Jiraiya responded cheekily, enjoying watching the gaping expressions of everyone there. Naruto turned white and started shaking. Shikamaru seemed to be the least affected, just raising an eyebrow.

"N-Na-Naruto's dad?", Kurenai responded shakily. "I t-thought he was dead?"

Jiraiya nodded in acknowledgement. "He and I were close friends. This was kind of a last favor he asked of me."

Naruto had gotten over only slightly the shock of hearing that someone might've known his heritage. "M-my dad? W-who was he!?" The intent stares from the rest of the group told Jiraiya that they wanted to know as well.

Jiraiya poked Naruto on the forehead, eliciting a yelp of pain. "All in due time, Naruto."

The team had trouble stifling their disappointment that the opportunity to learn more about Naruto's shrouded past. Kurenai was the first to speak again. "I suppose to honor Naruto's father's wishes, you will become his temporary sensei on this trip."

Jiraiya smirked in victory. "Naruto, we're heading out tomorrow at 8. Be at the main gate." Naruto nodded, and then sat back down, as he had gotten up in excitement at the mention of his father.

As Jiraiya turned to leave, Kurenai tapped him sharply on the shoulder, making him turn around. He gulped when he saw Kurenai's threatening face about a foot away from his, a kunai held tightly in her clenched fist to his throat.

"…if I hear that you've made Naruto into a pervert…"

Jiraiya gulped as Kurenai pointed the kunai down in the direction of Jiraiya's crotch, before turning around and letting Jiraiya leave with the threat still hanging in the air.

Jiraiya looked around, but the genin hadn't seen the small exchange.

He stomped his foot on the ground, and walked away.

"Maybe if I make Naruto into a closet pervert she'll never know…", Jiraiya muttered thoughtfully, but then froze as a wave of killing intent washed over him.

He turned around nervously to see a glaring Kurenai with her kunai still in hand.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?", he said, gulping nervously.

His punishment is all up to your imagination.


	13. Unwelcome Guests

This is my first fanfic!

Ugh… time flies when you have a mid year exam and multiple projects. …those were completely unexpected, I swear. Sorry about the late update _again_. I know I keep promising to make it better but I don't… _.

**Dude:** "Ok, what the fork is this excrement, you get off on this insane abuse or something, sicko?

You need help."

Sorry you don't like it, I guess. Don't like, don't read. No need to go around flaming like that. _

**Troutman30: **"Awesome! Naruto kisses The Ice Queen of Konoha in chapter 6 and then sees her naked in chapter 12! Naruto's not gonna get a lot of sleep, I know what I'd be seeing everytime I closed my eyes!"

I know right? I'm glad you like the story!!

**InARealPickle****: **"I find it hard to believe that a bunch of ninja and civilians knew that Naruto contained the Kyuubi,  
but Kurenai, Anko, and Asuma -all of whom were at least genin at the time of the attack- did not and had to be made aware of the S-rank law protecting the secret."

Actually, in this fanfic, Kurenai is only about 7 years older than Naruto. That means that when Naruto was born (Kyuubi was attacking), she was 7, 8 at most. In canon, iirc they graduated from the Academy at 11, or 12. That means that they weren't even technically genin yet, and thus unaware of Naruto being the jailor.

That also works with the other chapters as well, seeing as if Naruto was 4, Kurenai could be 12 or 13 ish. Notice that in canon, Naruto's team was entered into the chuunin exam pretty early on (somewhere around episode 23 I think in the anime).

**InARealPickle:** "Also, if they didn't even know about the Kyuubi, then why did they hesitate to defend a little 4 year old from a mob beating?

They just sat there and watched while the kid was beaten to a bloody mess and stabbed four times?  
What kind of village protectors are they?"

Well if you were eating with your friends and you saw a random kid getting beat up by adults, you wouldn't immediately jump to action – despite how good willed you were, most likely you would simply not have expected the event and until your brain processed what you were seeing, you would remain frozen. Also, although my description kind of dragged it on, it's supposed to be taking place all in a matter of seconds to minutes.

All in all, glad some of you at least are enjoying the fic!

Thanks for reviewing!

* * *

The sun was shining rather brightly in the sky. The whistles of the birds nesting in the trees, coupled with the large white, puffy clouds created the perfect spring day. The breeze picked up slightly, blowing by two individuals walking down a dusty, dirt path.

"Ero-senniiiiiin…", whined one of the figures, who was slouching slightly. He, Naruto Uzumaki, was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. His disheveled blond hair almost screamed messy to anyone who was looking at him.

The man in front, Jiraiya, stopped suddenly, a tick mark apparent on his forehead. He turned around, arms folded. His right eyelid was twitching.

"Gaki, how many times have I told you _not_ to call me that?!", Jiraiya barked furiously. Naruto glared at him, meeting his teacher's gaze.

"And how many times have I told you _not_ to call me gaki?! I'm not a gaki!", Naruto protested back, waving his arms.

Jiraiya sighed. "I'll stop calling you gaki when you stop _being_ a gaki, brat!"

Naruto humphed and crossed his own arms. "And I'll stop calling you Ero-sennin when you stop _being_ an Ero-sennin, Ero-sennin!"

Jiraiya had half a mind to pummel Naruto into the ground for that last comment, but he decided to just turn around, counting to infinitely high numbers to calm his frustration.

'Kids these days…', he muttered under his breath, while crying fake anime tears. 'No respect at all.'

He turned back again, facing his temporary student, and then sighed deeply. "Alright gaki, whaddya want."

Naruto looked furious at that, and he opened his mouth to shout, but then himself decided that it wasn't worth it.

"I have a question about Kage Bunshin.", he declared, waiting for a response. Naruto squinted his eyes while scratched the top of his head, a look that showed he was thinking. Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, before nodding with approval.

"So you finally have a valid question that isn't something about the nearest ramen stand or if we're at our destination yet.", Jiraiya said, sighing with relief.

Naruto looked thoughtful at that retort. "Where _is_ the nearest ramen stand, anyway? And _are_ we there yet?" Jiraiya sweat dropped and face faulted – not a very nice combination.

"What's your question?", Jiraiya asked, ignoring Naruto's outburst, after a while of Naruto being himself. Naruto shrugged. "I guess it's about its usefulness."

Seeing Jiraiya's puzzled look, Naruto elaborated. "I know Kage Bunshin is all great and stuff because you can train with it and there are multiple yous and all that, but it never seems to help in my fights."

_Mizuki grinned. "It doesn't matter how many clones you make, punk." He twirled his kunai, expertly jabbing it into the thigh of an incoming Naruto, making it yelp in pain and dispel. "As you've probably learned in the Academy…". He threw the kunai, which embedded itself into the forehead of another Naruto, which also dispelled. "One hundred times zero is still zero."_

Getting the gist of Naruto's question, Jiraiya smiled. "I see what you're getting at." Naruto looked relieved at the prospect of not having to explain again. He looked at the toad sage expectantly.

Jiraiya looked up at the sky, pondering about the best way to go about answering the interesting question, before looking back at Naruto.

"Naruto, I want you to jump.", he said with a tone of authority.

Naruto looked confused, but he complied, leaping off the ground slightly, only lifting himself mere inches off the Earth. Jiraiya nodded.

"Now, jump higher.", Jiraiya said. Naruto looked as if he was going to voice his mind and start spouting off questions, that is, until he was silenced by Jiraiya with a poke to the forehead. "I'll explain later."

Naruto jumped higher off the ground, clearing a good maybe 1 foot.

"Even higher.", Jiraiya commanded, and Naruto jumped higher and higher. This continued until Naruto was literally at his limit. He had even resorted to using chakra to propel his feet off the ground.

Naruto landed, and fell to his knees, panting slightly, trying to regain his breath. They had been going at this for a while.

"Jump higher.", Jiraiya repeated, raising an eyebrow. He already realized that Naruto was at the maximum height that he could jump.

Naruto glared at him. "I'm at my peak, Ero-sennin. I can't jump any higher. I channeled chakra to my feet and everything! What's the point?"

The sannin folded his arms, brushing off the last question as if it was nothing important. "Okay then. So beginning from the first jump, when I said to jump higher, what did you do?"

Naruto looked at him strangely, before saying, "Well, I added more force to my jump?"

Jiraiya nodded. "Exactly. And every time you wanted to go higher like I asked, you added more force, right?"

"How does this have to do with Kage Bunshin?", Naruto repeated curiously, starting to get a little frustrated. Jiraiya face palmed. "I said I'd explain it, and I will."

Straightening himself, Jiraiya continued with his lecture. "So why couldn't you go any further?"

Naruto gave him another strange look, as if Jiraiya was obviously missing the obvious. Could anyone be that dense? "Well, _duh_, ero-sennin… I couldn't apply anymore force! Just like you said I should." He pointed out.

Jiraiya smirked. "Exactly. You applied the maximum amount of force to your jump that any _one_ person could add.", he explained, emphasizing the word 'one'. Naruto's frustrated and annoyed expression turned into one with realization.

"Watch.", Jiraiya instructed, forming a ram seal and creating a shadow clone of himself. One of the Jiraiyas put his hands out, one over the other, palm in palm, and nodded signifying that he was ready. Naruto looked at the spectacle with excitement and anticipation at the possibility of learning something new. The original took a running start, before leaping, and landing on top of the outstretched hands of the first Jiraiya, who used his hands to push the jumping Jiraiya up higher into the air.

Jiraiya was sent flying well beyond Naruto's peak jump, as the upward force applied to him was the combination of his own effort and his clone's upward push. Naruto watched in awe as Jiraiya sailed through the air, flipping and landing gracefully with a dull _clop_ on the ground as his wooden sandals hit the dirt path they were walking on.

Jiraiya smiled at Naruto's awed expression. "As you can tell, you can basically extend your ninja capabilities beyond the limitations that you would have just by only having one Naruto."

Naruto grinned, coming up with ideas of how to use Kage Bunshin. Jiraiya smiled even greater, both prideful in his student and prideful in himself for managing to shut up Naruto even if only for a while. He turned and continued walking down the path, Naruto following after, silent and in thought.

This silence was short lived, however. "Ne, Ero-sennin…!"

Another tick appeared in Jiraiya's forehead as he turned around swiftly with a small glare. "What is it, Naruto?"

"Are we there yet?"

Who knew a legendary sannin could use such colorful language?

* * *

Kurenai was feeling slightly downcast. While her fellow jounin senseis passed it off as another rude man trying to score a date with her, it was, in actuality, because of Naruto. It wasn't the genin himself. She felt slightly useless, because another person, albeit a legendary sannin, but that was besides the point, had become the teacher, even if temporary, to one of her students. It made her feel like she wasn't a good sensei.

She shook her head, clearing it of petty thoughts like this.

She was taking a walk, alongside one of her good friends Sarutobi Asuma. They were walking upon a rather large bridge that hovered over a relatively calm, thin river that was about jumping distance for the average shinobi.

As they continued walking, Asuma froze. Kurenai, noticing this immediately, turned to him, alert. Asuma subtly nodded over his shoulder, which Kurenai looked at. There were two unknown figures walking about 100 meters away, near the bridge.

Kurenai detected what Asuma had noticed that was strange about the two; they seemed to have kage level chakra levels, which was not an every day occurrence. They also had suspicious clothing on – long black coats that went well beyond their torsos, with red clouds that were outlined in white. Their faces were covered by the large bamboo hats they wore. Each step they took was accompanied by a small ringing noise, as there were red strings tied to the edges of the bamboo that had bells on the ends.

Asuma then tilted his head to the left, and Kurenai followed his gaze. There was a serious looking Kakashi about 50 meters on the other side, who was staring intently right at them, using his body language to show that he too was unsure about the pair of unknown shinobi.

Using quick gestures, they conversed silently, as no words were needed in this conversation, only the ability to interpret gestures and movements, as well as emotions. They finally agreed that Asuma and Kurenai would interrogate the two. When Asuma gave Kakashi a slightly puzzled look, and raised an eyebrow, meaning that he wanted to know what Kakashi was going to do, Kakashi smirked. He pointed over his shoulder, and then used the index and middle fingers of each hand, pressed them together and curled them above each eye, like big fuzzy eyebrows.

Kurenai giggled slightly as she understood what he was inferring. He was going to go get Guy.

Either way, they had a duty to do. As Asuma and Kurenai turned around sharply to find the mysterious duo, they saw the black coated people walking up the bridge, probably to pass by them and into the village.

Snarling, Asuma confronted them, sticking himself in an aggressive pose about 5 feet away from the figures, making them stop in their tracks.

"What do you want here in Konoha?", he asked, leaking a bit of killing intent. Kurenai stood off to the side, observing their movements carefully and trying to figure out who they were and if they were familiar.

"It's been a long time… Asuma…", one of the figures said in a cold emotionless voice, nodding at Asuma, "…Kurenai…", he said, nodding in acknowledgement at Kurenai as well. They looked surprised and slightly puzzled. Who _was_ this man? And how did he know their names?

With a slight shake of the head, the bamboo hat fell off, revealing two blood red eyes that matched Kurenai's own, and long black hair that ruffled in the wind. The Konoha nin gasped in recognition.

"Itachi Uchiha." Asuma said gruffly, his hands moving towards the place where he kept his trench knives. "You have a lot of guts coming back here, after what you did."

Itachi smirked, and his partner chuckled slightly. "You seem to have lots of friends here, don't you Itachi." The man suddenly lurched forward, and a long bandaged sword shot out of the back of his coat, twirling in the air. He swung his head to the side, and his bamboo hat fell off as well. He raised a long arm upwards, catching the sword by the handle. The man then swung downwards with the blade in a one handed slice, smashing a decent sized dent in the ground. He looked up at the non-cloaked shinobi.

"Can I kill them?", he asked, half jokingly, half serious.

Itachi's partner had blue skin and dark blue lines cutting across his cheeks, apparently gills. He had this maniacal grin on his face, and threw off killing intent as if it was nothing.

"Kisame Hoshigaki.", Kurenai said with a slight gasp. Here there were, two S ranked ninja who were wanted in nearly every country, just standing in front of them.

"You seem to know my name…", the blue man drawled, picking up his sword in a steady position ahead of them. "…I'm honored."

"You still haven't answered my question.", Asuma said, a knife in each hand, preparing for combat.

"That is none of your concern.", Itachi said coolly, giving them a hard stare with his red eyes. Kisame grinned wider at this. "I think that's a yes, right?"

Itachi and Kisame made eye contact, before Itachi gave a short nod. The edges of Kisame's mouth stretched far into a toothy, evil grin.

"Make this quick.", were Itachi's only comments. He acted as if this was a normal happenstance, and he said it kind of offhandedly, as if he knew that the Konoha nin would have no chance against Kisame.

Before Asuma could react, Kisame had flung himself forward suddenly, hacking his sword downwards with immense, almost superhuman speed and strength.

Dodging back, the bearded jounin Asuma barely escaped the attack. The blade had smashed into the ground with a resounding _thwack_. Asuma was now standing beside Kurenai. The jounin looked at each other.

"I got the swordsman.", Asuma stated simply, to which Kurenai nodded. Asuma charged at Kisame, who swung his sword from the ground upwards, while Kurenai fell back.

Asuma blocked the attack with one of his trench knives, but found himself being pushed back just by the simple strength of the fish-man. 'What power…', he inwardly mused. He lunged forward, swinging at Kisame with a powerful right hook at Kisame's face. Kisame decided to be simplistic, and dodged by tilting his head back, letting Asuma's fist travel by.

However, he was surprised by a searing pain in his cheek. Looking closer at Asuma's knives, he noticed that the trench knife in Asuma's dominant right hand had an aura of chakra around it, which was molded into a sharp extended machete about a foot long. The other knife was also extended, but not as much.

It was the typical swordsman two swords approach. The longer sword in your dominant hand, which is used for attacking from farther distances – lunging, gouging, the works. The shorter one, with more control, is used for defense, balance, and if you can get close enough, stabbing.

Kisame quickly wiped the blood from his cheek from where the wound was, and then smirked. "You're not bad.", he drawled, before slicing downwards again at Asuma's body that was still following through on the attack.

Asuma barely had any time to do anything, but he managed to block the large sword with his own trench knife, pushing him back even more. Asuma smirked despite himself, and thrusted himself at Kisame again. They traded blows expertly, and went into a sort of pattern. Kisame would attack with a single powerful attack, which Asuma would parry barely, and then Asuma would counterattack multiple times, each attempt Kisame was easily able to dodge and block.

Kurenai nodded, seeing that Asuma was alright, and concentrated on her opponent. Flashing through hand seals, she released one of her more powerful genjutsu. It was a triple layered genjutsu, and it required a lot of skill and expertise and know how in the field, one that a genjutsu expert like Kurenai had.

The first layer was her signature jutsu, which turned the world into shades of pink. A tree blasted out of the stone ground, stretching out and ensnaring the opponent. The second genjutsu layer was slightly less obvious, and something to fall back upon if her opponents broke through the first layer, which was just about as easy as breaking through a normal genjutsu.

This second layer didn't really have anything special, but it basically made opponents overconfident, as it almost shouted that there was a genjutsu there. That was the purpose – to make them too sure in their own skills that they failed to see the third layer.

If they broke through the second layer, they would hit the third layer. The third layer was so intricately made that no excess chakra was exerted, and there was almost no difference between the real world (in appearance) and inside the genjutsu, making it nigh undetectable. However, if they were trapped in this layer, and started fighting with Kurenai on this level, Kurenai would have a definite advantage.

At her will, she could make it seem as though she had dodged left or moved in one direction, and then in actuality go in the other. It should be obvious how easily Kurenai would be able to land powerful blows this way. And if the genjutsu user was extremely clever, and skilled in using this distorted field, as Kurenai was, they could _still_ make it seem as though there was no genjutsu, despite obviously using it to their advantage.

It was one of her prize and joys, and was something Kurenai had concocted after years of practicing. However, she was surprised when Itachi made no effort to break out of the first layer, instead closing his eyes as the branches wrapped tightly around him.

Oh well, all the better for her. She drew a kunai, dashing towards Itachi, intending to land a finishing blow, when suddenly, he opened his eyes widely, his iris, which had taken on the shape of a shuriken, spinning wildly.

In a flash, Kurenai couldn't move. She found herself stuck in her own genjutsu, and Itachi the one about to deal the finishing blow. The positions were reversed!?

'But how…', she thought.

Concentrating in her mind, she released her own genjutsu suddenly, just to see Itachi spin around, throwing a roundhouse kick at her. Forming a small seal less genjutsu, she made it seem as though she had jumped backwards to avoid it, when in reality she had simply ducked the kick. It was, in a way, a smaller simpler version of the more complex one she had just used. And it sufficed.

She threw a punch at Itachi, releasing the smaller genjutsu, expecting him to be taken by surprise. But nope, it seemed as though that genjutsu had been seen through as well. Itachi easily weaved around the punch, and thrusted forward, kneeing Kurenai smartly in the stomach, sending her off the bridge and into the water, which she managed to not sink in by using water walking skills.

Asuma was not faring any better. Somehow, he was finding it harder and harder to maintain the chakra blades, as every time one of his trench knives was blocked by the large bandaged sword, the elongated blade would shimmer, as if losing chakra, and he would be forced to force more chakra into it to keep it going.

He was panting now. "…how?" he sputtered out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kurenai flying off the bridge. "Kurenai!" he shouted out, concerned, but then Kisame's blade flew downwards again, and Asuma was forced to block with his chakra blades, and once again they seemed to get sucked away.

The situation looked grim.

Kurenai got up to her feet, standing on the water's surface. She shuddered. How could anyone see through her genjutsus so easily? It seemed as though she was not match for Itachi…

She saw him gracefully leap onto the water as well, walking towards her with a kunai in hand that he was casually twirling.

"Looks like it ends here.", he said, and Kurenai spat at him. "Like hell it is."

Itachi slashed diagonally, and Kurenai drew a kunai of her own in an attempt to block, when suddenly there was a loud _clang_.

In front of her, was Kakashi, holding a kunai of his own, stopping the attack. "Looks like I came right in time, hmm Kurenai-san?"

Kurenai let out a sigh of relief, as Kakashi was definitely a better match for this man, as she was a genjutsu specialist, and it seemed as though genjutsu was unable to hinder Itachi, even for a millisecond.

"SEVERE KONOHA SENPU!", came a loud shout, as Guy flew at Kisame, spinning in mid air and landing a powerful aerial kick to the swordsman's chest, causing him to skid backwards some.

"…Reinforcements.", Kisame sneered. "No matter, I can take you down anyways." He flipped his blade upwards, holding it in a more comfortable position.

"Stop, Kisame."

Itachi looked impassive, looking directly at Kakashi. "Your way is inefficient. Slow. Wastes time. Energy. My way is simpler. Faster. And deadlier." He stared right at Kakashi in the eyes, and to Kakashi, the skies turned red and gloomy.

Kakashi gasped, and tried to move, but found he couldn't. He looked downwards and found himself tied to wooden plank that was sticking upright out of the ground.

"For the next 72 hours, this is how you will feel." A deep voice said, making him shiver slightly.

And then he felt a searing pain in his stomach as a blade was stabbed through him.


	14. AUTHOR'S NOTE sorry gift

AUTHOR'S NOTE (Not an official chapter, mostly an apology and explanation, but I decided to throw in a small one shot as a sorry gift.)

God damn! I'm really sorry you guys!

I promised that if I ever screwed up and forgot to upload for a while, I'd at least update you guys. And here it is. My apology.

School is getting to me – I'm trying to balance school work and my free time, but with break coming up, my teachers are being… well… assholes.

My school's February break is indeed coming up, meaning you can expect LOTS MORE UPDATES next week. I'll get much better over break…

This is something I really didn't want to have to do, but I guess I gotta.

I came up with an idea, and decided to pursue it. The following one shot can be considered part of the story, but not in the place that it is now. It doesn't really fit, as Naruto is technically on his training trip/trip to go find Tsunade. However, you can see this as a kind of flashback, so you can see a more in depth view of what team 8's training sessions are sometimes like.

* * *

Chapter 14.5

There was a relative calmness on training ground 8, as the sun reached its peak after an agonizingly slow climb. There were only two individuals standing in the grounds, one a taller shinobi, and one much shorter.

"So, Naruto.", Kurenai started simply, creating a small conversation.

"Where's Shikamaru and Ino?", Naruto asked confusedly, looking at his jounin sensei for answers. It was a very straightforward question, one that slightly stunned Kurenai. Most ninja would try to ease the information out of the informant, maybe engaging in small banter before asking subtly, but Naruto shattered that tradition.

This new outright attitude was one that Kurenai was not used to, and she besides herself gave a slight grin. It was small things like this that perked her mood. One of these small things being Naruto smashing the old traditional idea of shinobi being calm and collected and emotionless. Naruto couldn't be any more different, in her eyes.

"Ino and Shikamaru are currently undergoing special training by their respective clans.", Kurenai explained, to which Naruto nodded. "This will happen every so often. It was requested by Inoichi-san and Shikaku-san, their parents, that they skip practice one week from every other month to train specially with their clans."

"What's so special that they're teaching that you can't teach?", Naruto prompted curiously. Kurenai sighed.

"Clans have special clan based jutsu, as you might've noticed. For example, Shikamaru can manipulate shadows, if you saw. Ino can do mind based jutsu. Those are clan based. I am not part of said clans, so my knowledge in those subjects is probably limited compared to that of the clans themselves. This gives them an opportunity to learn their clan jutsus better."

Naruto couldn't help but frown slightly, a bit envious. "Man I wish _I _had a clan."

Kurenai noted this and was about to comment that he indeed was part of a clan – the Uzumaki clan, but quickly stopped herself. She knew that bringing up the topic of his clan would cause unnecessary questions that would throw her off. It would lead to the painful topic of his parents, which Kurenai knew nothing about.

While Kurenai knew Naruto was a strong individual, she was unsure how he'd do with this new emotional trouble such as the subject of his parents. And she wasn't keen on comforting a broken child. Especially if it was a normally upbeat kid like Naruto.

So she pretended not to hear the comment and continued.

"We're going to work on your taijutsu today. Your kata execution is pretty good, but your stances could be worked on."

Naruto nodded in understanding.

He dropped quickly into a common taijutsu stance, one foot stepped out in front while the other was positioned behind him. His hands were placed in strict places to balance out his weight.

His looked dead ahead, and he bent his knees slightly to allow better mobility.

Kurenai looked at him slightly, before adjusting his back foot into a more comfortable position for Naruto. She moved his hands a little bit, and tapped his shoulders to make them relax.

She frowned a bit. "Don't be so tense." Naruto complied, dropping a little bit.

"Straighten your back."

"You're tensing up again."

"Bend your knees more."

"You're slouching again…"

Hours flew by as the duo practiced taijutsu stances. Naruto had a grimace on his face as his mind worked overtime to remember all of the minor adjustments.

"Ne, sensei, what's the point of this?", he said with a hint of frustration as Kurenai tapped his foot, shifting it over a little.

"By themselves, these little changes in posture shouldn't change anything. However together, you'll achieve a new level in taijutsu."

Naruto sighed. He guessed it was fine, if it was going to help, he'd better comply.

After returning from lunch where they had gone into a near death encounter with a certain purple haired Special Jounin, they resumed their training.

The sun was beginning to fall again, and reddish hues flushed through the land, dousing all it touched with its dim glow.

Kurenai stomped the ground in her own frustration, biting her lip. Naruto, despite all this, was having trouble maintaining the stance. Every time he got it right, she would make him go through a kata and go back to the original stance, in which case he would mistakenly revert to his old habits.

They were making small improvements, but it was rather slow.

Finally, walked over to a tree where her jounin vest lay folded, went through one of the pockets, and found what she was looking for. She drew out a large coil of ninja wire, and walked over to the genin.

Kurenai expertly wrapped Naruto's arm into a certain position, forcing him to keep it in the same area relative to his torso. Seeing its success in forcing Naruto into the right position, she went ahead and tied down other parts of his body, making him stand in the correct stance.

"I want you to stay like that for a while.", she instructed. "Get used to the feeling of keeping like that, and then recreate it when I untie you."

Naruto nodded, wincing slightly as the wire was a little tight and his arms were getting sore and tired.

A half hour passed before Kurenai nodded to herself, drawing a kunai to cut Naruto loose. "Alright, get ready to recreate the stance."

As she sawed through the lines of wire, it was at that time that Anko decided to walk by with one of her close friends, Yuugao Uzuki, a purple haired kunoichi known as one of the best kenjutsu specialists in all of Konoha (she was in ANBU, as well).

Watching the scene, Yuugao coughed lightly, and Anko gave a burst of full blown laughter, scaring the pair, who hadn't seen them approach.

"Oi Kure-chan!", Anko shouted boisterously. "I didn't know you were into bondage!"

The expression on Kurenai's face was priceless. She turned an extremely sickly red that would put a tomato to shame. She was flustered by the implication of her friend.

Yuugao was chuckling and clutching her sides as she examined Kurenai's face.

Naruto cocked an eyebrow at the scene.

"Sensei, what's bondage?"

Anko and Yuugao roared with laughter as Kurenai covered her face from shame and embarrassment.

Following the ordeal, a red faced Kurenai was walking away, pride hurt, as her two companions were still laughing, remembering what happened.

Naruto still didn't know what it was. He furrowed his brow in confusion as he thought about it. Nope. Not a clue. He resolved to ask the old man.


	15. A New Technique

This is my first fanfic!

Man – this chapter took me a while. All the editing… shoot.

Thanks for waiting!

In case you haven't realized, _italics_ usually are things happening in the past. Sometimes they are used for emphasis, however.

* * *

Four individuals were walking along a stone walkway, their backs facing the suns such that their shadows stretched meters ahead of them. The sun was gleaming, but fading quickly as it receded into hiding behind the tall, proud mountains that skewed the horizon in the distance.

The boy in the front, with blaringly yellow hair and an energetically neon orange jumpsuit, was smirking with an undeniable amount of happiness, and perhaps a slight amount of pride. Naruto formed a ram seal, and a shadow clone of himself jumped into existence right behind him with a barely audible pop.

Naruto looked at his look alike, and they shared a look before setting into motion. Without warning, the orange-clad ninja thrust out his arm, palm facing upwards towards the sky. The clone went instantly to work, making erratic movements as he prodded and turned and pushed the chakra that was being emitted from the center of the hand of his creator.

The clone worked at the chakra, molding it into a perfect blue sphere that was rotating rapidly. Grinning, Naruto took off, charging at a lone tree that happened to be standing nearby, and thrust his hand into the center of the tree, connecting the ball with the tree.

"RAAAAAAAASEEEEENGAAAAAAN!", he shouted.

The ball spun rapidly, using its sheer momentum and power to drill into the tree, quickly shredding through the exterior bark. Naruto didn't stop there, and followed through on the motion, pushing the chakra orb into the center of the tree.

With a resounding crack, the tree was, in a way, decapitated as the top of was completely disconnected from the body. The ball in Naruto's hand dissipated suddenly, and the genin fell to his knees, his hands on his thighs as he panted heavily.

"…that always takes a lot out of me…", he admitted dryly.

"I think you're improving with that, Naruto-kun!", a black haired girl said approvingly. She was wearing a long black robe that complimented her brown eyes nicely. She gave a small thumbs up to the encouraged Hokage-wannabe.

"Thanks Shizune-neechan!", the genin called boisterously between gasps for air.

"Don't overdo it, brat.", the blonde female sannin of the group, Tsunade, said with a tint of annoyance. "I wouldn't want you _passing out_ on us again. For a small gaki like you, you sure do weigh a lot."

Naruto, after having caught his breath, gave a small 'humph', before crossing his arms and pouting cutely.

The white haired man in the group continued walking, acting as if he hadn't noticed his student's display. And he probably hadn't. He was slightly unhappy by the fact that his colleague, Tsunade, wouldn't let him conduct his research.

Naruto had been practicing said technique on random objects ever since he, Jiraiya, had taught him it, if the trail of demolished trees didn't shout it loudly enough.

_"ERO-SENNIN!", a loud voice whined. Jiraiya groaned, dropping himself down from the box he had been standing on to stare over the fence to the women's hot springs area._

"_What is it, Naruto?", he commented with a tinge of annoyance and slight restlessness as his favorite pastime was interrupted. Naruto, oblivious to his sensei's cold demeanor, brightened up considerably as he posed his question. Or more like demand._

"_Teach me a new technique, Ero-sennin!", he said, flailing his arms wildly as he jumped up and down excitedly._

_Jiraiya blinked as he slapped his face, groaning with self-pity. He wanted nothing more than to keep at his perverted antics, generating research to implement into his next best selling novel of the Icha Icha Tactics series._

"_Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase? You haven't taught me many new tricks today!"_

_Jiraiya blinked again, before a tick appeared in his forehead. A vein bulged in his head as he spoke._

"_This morning!", he protested indignantly. "I helped you coordinate your efforts with Kage Bunshin!"_

_Naruto shook his head disdainfully. "Not enough!"_

_Jiraiya moaned before commenting again. "What about after lunch? I took you to the weapons store and picked you up some shuriken sealing scrolls for your wrists…", he said, pointing at Naruto's wrists, which were indeed wrapped in a special sealing paper with the kanji for 'star' on it._

_They were special paper with seals drawn on them such that if one could hover a hand slightly over said seals and emitted a pulse of chakra, they would summon a gigantic shuriken the size of a tire. This was just a simple storage seal, based off the idea of storage scrolls, so there was nothing special – it wasn't as if you were conjuring a shuriken out of thin air – you were basically transporting it from a safe place you might keep somewhere secure, like in your room. Or in the belly of a toad, in Naruto's case._

_They were special seals – by exerting some chakra through said seals, Naruto could summon a gigantic shuriken for his immediate usage. However, to set up a seal like this, one had to recharge the stock of shuriken in the seal._

_Naruto nodded excitedly, before adding, "But that isn't enough, Ero-sennin! Come on, there has to be SOMETHING you can teach me more today!"_

_Jiraiya growled. "And then in the afternoon? I worked with you on chakra control!"_

_Naruto frowned slightly. "That counts as training? That didn't really help very much."_

"_A key part to becoming Hokage is knowing when to rest.", Jiraiya countered plainly, trying to play on the fact that anything that a 'Hokage would do', Naruto would try and do._

_However, he underestimated Naruto's brain power. "I DO know when to rest, Ero-sennin! And this isn't the time! Comee onnnn!! One more thing and I'll leave you alone today!"_

_Jiraiya nodded glumly, realizing that if he declined, Naruto would be begging for the rest of the day. Naruto gave a whoop of happiness before jumping in the air excitedly._

_The toad sage gave a sad regretful glance at the onsen._

_Deciding to take one final peek before devoting to his task, he hopped on the box, glimpsing over the fence on last time. However, his careless movements created a small racket._

"_AIIIIIIE! PERVERT!"_

_The toad sage ducked just in time as a barrage of kunai (and a shoe) flew, slicing through the air, whistling over the sannin's head in the place where he was just at._

_He giggled lecherously before walking with Naruto. In his mind, he was grinning diabolically as a new idea popped into his mind._

'_If I teach him Minato's technique, then not only will he stop bugging me… if I leave him by himself he should keep himself busy for the rest of the training trip!'_

_They continued walking away until they reached a small grassy hill. It was rather secluded, and there was peace and quiet. Jiraiya smirked, and stopped in his tracks. The perfect training area, he thought. Naruto saw his teacher stop, and he followed suit._

"_Alright kid.", Jiraiya said blandly out loud, and Naruto looked at him with a mixture of curiousness and anticipation. Forming a swirling ball of chakra in his outstretched hand, he shoved it into the ground, causing a massive shockwave that knocked Naruto backwards suddenly, who landed painfully on his ass on the ground._

"_H-h-holy s-shit…", Naruto mumbled with shock and surprise, getting up to examine the relatively large crater Jiraiya had made into the ground. "You're going to t-teach me that?"_

"_Yeah. Wait here.", the sage said, The genin waited patiently, admiring the crater in the ground. That was one devastating technique. Naruto wouldn't admit it, but the pervert had impressed him. He whistled softly._

_Grinning, he decided to get a head start in learning the technique. He copied Jiraiya's previous stance, and channeled chakra to his hands. Squinting his eyes in concentration, he attempted to form the ball that his teacher had made. Nothing really happened, though. Naruto, at certain points, could've sworn he could feel a difference, but he passed it off eventually as the wind._

_Soon after, his temporary sensei came back to the area, holding two bags – one with colorful water balloons, the other with rubber balls. Naruto looked at his teacher confusedly, but Jiraiya gave him a look that said, 'I'll explain it all in due time.'_

"_I want you to pop this water balloon.", he said simply, tossing Naruto one of the water balloons from one of the bags. Naruto caught it, surprised, before beginning to draw a kunai._

_Jiraiya frowned at this. "No, gaki, not with a kunai! You'll be using pure chakra." Naruto hastily put his weapon away before gaping at his sensei. "NANI? That's impossible!"_

_Jiraiya smirked, getting a balloon of his own into his hand. He outstretched a hand, and placed the water balloon gently into the center. The genin watched with fascination as the balloon started convulsing, bumps and grooves suddenly appearing on the surface as the shape contorted in all directions._

_There was a harsh pop as the exterior of the balloon gave way suddenly, the water gushing out rapidly, spraying in all directions._

_Naruto's jaw dropped, before he grinned with anticipation. Palming his own balloon, he channeled chakra furiously. The balloon sported a rather ugly bulge at the top, before another appeared. Then the entire balloon expanded and shrunk as one large sphere, but there was no popping._

_Naruto furrowed his brow, pushing more chakra through his hand. This made the balloon flatten and stretch, but it still didn't pop. After about two minutes of this, he stopped, panting._

"…_that's harder than it sounds…", he said between breaths._

_Jiraiya grinned. "That's the spirit! I'll be conducting some… uh… research. Come find me when you've popped it."_

_Naruto scowled at this, but he nodded, and began channeling chakra again._

_With a humph of finality, Jiraiya walked away with an air of happiness as Naruto, with a determined expression on his face, kept going at the exercise._

'_He's not going to get this any time soon.'_

_Naruto wasn't known as the number one most surprising ninja in Konoha for nothing. It had taken him only about a day's worth of work. Jiraiya's searching for his old team mate Tsunade wasn't very fruitful, on his part._

"_Ero-sennin! Ero-sennin!", the genin shouted loudly, startling the man who almost lost his balance. The pervert was crouched on top of a tall pole, and out of the corner of his eye was staring intently with a perverted smirk on his face at the hot springs._

_Jiraiya looked down at the ground to see an excited Naruto leaping up and down with a surprising amount of energy._

"_What is it, brat?", he grumbled as he jumped off the pole to meet his student._

"_I got it down! Watch!", Naruto exclaimed enthusiastically, blissfully ignoring Jiraiya's calling him a brat. The 'brat' formed a ram seal, creating a Kage Bunshin. He opened his hand, mimicking the stance Jiraiya took when he was showing Naruto the exercise before. His palm was facing upwards, and his arm was straight out in front of him, a water balloon in the center._

_Jiraiya watched with a mixed amount of disappointment (that perhaps it wouldn't take the brat the entire trip) and pride (that his student had mastered the first part of the Rasengan so quickly) as Naruto emitted chakra and the clone channeled it in different directions, causing the water balloon to bulge randomly, not unlike Jiraiya's balloon before, before exploding._

"_Ingenious use of a shadow clone.", Jiraiya mused, rubbing his chin, perversion temporarily forgotten. Naruto beamed under the praise, but Jiraiya held out a finger._

"_You did well, I'll admit that. However, that's just step one."_

_Minutes later found a disgruntled Naruto trying unsuccessfully to pop a rubber ball using the same method._

_The rubber ball bulged slightly as the clone molded the chakra around it, but the ball was otherwise untouched._

_Naruto moaned. "I swear… Ero-sennin probably made up this 'step' on the spot just to keep me busy so he can go back to his 'research'." Although he said that mostly as a joke, he didn't realize how much truth his statement held._

_Hours later, drops of sweat were falling freely from the face of the determined genin. His palm was still out with the rubber ball in the center, and a clone with a grin was frantically swirling the chakra in all directions, forcing it to mash against each other in random areas, causing the rubber ball to convulse. However, no matter how much the clone did this, it only morphed slightly – not even close to popping._

_Naruto gave a frustrated snarl, before channeling a giant surge of chakra into his palm without thinking. The ball flew up with the sudden pressure, striking the clone smartly on the nose, causing it to disappear in a poof of smoke. The ball ricocheted, slamming into the original's chin._

"_Gaah.", he got out, before stumbling backwards and falling on his ass again. He groaned and rubbed his chin, and unconsciously, his nose as well. "Damn…", he whistled. "That alone was an attack on its own level."_

_He chuckled at his own joke._

_About a week had passed. Every day was the same – they get up, eat breakfast, Naruto and Jiraiya work on things for a while, and then they part so that Jiraiya can try to find Tsunade while Naruto works on the steps of the technique. He was getting closer and closer to popping that rubber ball._

_Days later, one night, Naruto and Jiraiya were preparing to hit the sack. As they lay in their respective sleeping bags, they stared at the ceiling, before starting a small conversation._

"_Ero-sennin… I completed the 2__nd__ step too!", Naruto said with a prideful smirk. Jiraiya smiled genuinely at this._

"_Well done! You're breezing through this nicely.", Jiraiya commented. "There's only one more step. You're more than half way done… technically."_

"_YATTA!" Naruto shouted, wildly pumping a fist into the air._

_Jiraiya sweat dropped watching this, and then laughed at the goofy expression on his apprentice's face._

"_Also, I've gotten a lead on the location of my former team mate Tsunade.", he added offhandedly. "She was actually sighted leaving a nearby town recently. Most likely if we just follow the route that my spies tell me she followed, we'll catch up to her soon enough."_

_In the morning, after a quick breakfast of ramen and cereal (guess who ate what), the duo set off on a dusty path._

_Jiraiya had explained to him the third and final step to creating a Rasengan._

_It was simply to combine the first and second steps, but also emit chakra while doing so._

_Just adding this third step took Naruto another 3 days just to get it down… but all in all he completely smashed the Yondaime's record on learning the Rasengan – which was 3 years!_

The toad sannin's face stretched into a lecherous grin as they passed over a hill, and the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Konoha, came into sight.

"Aha! Home at last!", Jiraiya shouted, opening his arms as if preparing to embrace the air. "Hot springs! Research! Hot ladies! Here I come!"

The medical sannin gave a dangerous growl that sent shivers down the spines of apprentice and teacher alike. A tick appeared on her forehead, and she smashed her fist on top of Jiraiya's head, using her monstrous strength to get him acquainted with the ground.

"Hentai! Why did I even agree to become sensei's replacement anyway?", Tsunade wondered out loud. Shizune, her assistant, chuckled nervously.

"It's obvious that you fell for my good looks – my undeniable sex appeal.", said a slightly muffled voice from a white haired sannin.

Tsunade made sure that as they continued, she stepped onto Jiraiya's face as she walked. She laughed slightly when she heard the indignant yelps of pain from the downtrodden man.

_Jiraiya walked into a small cozy restaurant, followed closely by his apprentice, Naruto. The atmosphere inside was rather warm. There were people of all sizes, both men and women, chatting excitedly. Some looked positively dangerous, but everyone seemed to be friendly._

"_Ne… Ero-senninnnnnnnnn! Why are we heeeeere?", Naruto whined._

"_Idiot! It's dinner time, and this is a restaurant! I'm not teaching you anything on an empty stomach!", his teacher practically barked._

_Naruto opened his mouth to retort, but then stopped upon seeing a shocked look on Jiraiya's face._

"_Sensei?", Naruto inquired. Jiraiya's eyes bugged out. He pointed to a far corner of the restaurant. The jinchuuriki followed the sannin's gaze and saw two young looking women, one blonde and appearing about 25-30ish, the other black haired and appearing about 20._

"_Well what do you know. There's Tsunade!", he stated, and Naruto nodded, raising his eyebrows in surprise. Jiraiya smirked, knowing that his mission was a success._

_They walked over to the pair, to see the blonde sannin indulging on sake while her companion fed fish cakes to a pig, who occasionally oinked in contentment._

"_Jiraiya-sama?", the black haired one asked quizzically. "Why are you here?"_

_Then she saw Naruto. "And who's this?"_

"_Ah you must be Shizune-san.", Jiraiya said to her, to which she nodded. Then the old pervert sat down, and turned to the sake drinking blonde._

"_Tsunade, Sensei is retiring. And we're going to need a replacement Hokage when he finally decides to…" Jiraiya began, but was promptly cut off by an irate Tsunade._

"_Congratulations, Jiraiya. I knew you could become Hokage. I know you'll do great things. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go order some more sake."_

_Her assistant shook her head, rubbing her forehead._

"_No, Tsunade.", Jiraiya said, shaking his head. Tsunade got up to go, but Jiraiya put a hand on her shoulder. "It's you that they've chosen to be the Hokage."_

"_Me?", Tsunade gave a mocking smirk, before laughing hard. "Let me think about it."_

_She put a hand on her hip and used the other to rub her chin, tilting her head as if in deep thought. And then she clapped her hands._

"_How about no?", she said with an indifferent expression on her face. Naruto, seeing how she just passed up his dream job so easily, started to get frustrated._

"_How come?", Jiraiya asked before Naruto could say anything rude._

"_Please. Being Hokage is a joke.", she responded coolly with a slight chuckle. Naruto's eye twitched. …a joke…?_

"_Oh please.", Tsunade mocked, seeing the outraged expression on Jiraiya's companion's face. "Sacrificing your life for a village? You've only got 1 life to live, y'know. And throwing it away like that… it's unheard of. Absurd."_

_Naruto gave an extremely cold glare at her, before getting up._

"_Come on, Ero-sennin. Who needs a moron like her to be Hokage?", he said. "She obviously doesn't get it. She's acting all stuck up and selfish. I can't believe the council actually thought she could be Hokage. Heck, even I'm a better candidate."_

_Tsunade was a woman of pride, and she wasn't about to let this go. Jumping to her feet, she met Naruto's glare with one of her own, and they stared each other down._

"_Who are you? How dare you speak to me like that?"_

_The orange clad ninja's glare lessened, and he resumed his happy go lucky attitude. He straightened up his back, and jutted his chest out. Pointing at himself, he smiled._

"_I'm Naruto Uzumaki! I'm going to become Hokage! The best Hokage that ever lived!"_

_Tsunade froze._

'_Naruto Uzumaki, huh?', she thought. 'This is interesting.'_

**Flashback (Note: when I have to use a flashback within a flashback, I'll do it like this)**

"_I'm Kushina Uzumaki!", a loudmouthed red haired girl proclaimed in front of half the graduating class. She jutted out her chest and pointed at herself proudly. "Some day – I'm going to become the best Hokage that ever lived!"_

**End Flashback**

_'Kushi-chan's brat, huh. And, minus the whiskers, he looks just like Minato in his earlier years. Heh.'_

_She wasn't going to drop his earlier comment, however. She pointed towards the doorway._

"_Outside. Now.", she snarled. The ramen loving gaki resumed his cold glare at her, and nodded._

_They walked out of the restaurant, a grinning Jiraiya and a worried Shizune following closely behind._

_The sky was a light blue, mixing with pigments of yellow and tinges of red and the occasional splotch of purple. The medical sannin flexed her muscles, and grinned largely, scaring Naruto slightly._

"_A'ight brat. Let's do this."_

_She unclenched her tightened fists, and pointed a single finger at Naruto._

"_I'm going to beat you with a single finger. And you won't be able to touch me once!"_

_Naruto roared in frustration. She… she was… underestimating him!? He charged forward, forming a Ram Seal._

"_KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"_

_Ten clones appeared, each joining the assault against the sannin. Tsunade was impressed on the inside that a genin knew an A rank, possibly S ranked, kinjutsu, but didn't let it show._

_As the front of the pack approached, she swiped her finger downwards, and her monstrous strength caused the unlucky clone that got hit on the nose by the downwards moving finger to smash into the ground and poof away._

_The next two came in a pair, but they were quickly dealt with as the medic used her finger to stop their taijutsu attacks, and then flicked them painfully._

_The clones attempted to swarm her, catch her off guard, attack at strange angles to at least get a blow, but the Hokage candidate easily dodged blows, using her lone finger to swipe, flick and demolish the Naruto look a likes._

_Finally, only two Naruto's were left. They worked together and after a minute of effort, the original held high and proudly in his hand a Rasengan. It wasn't as perfect in shape as Jiraiya or Minato's, both sannin could tell. But it was something. And Tsunade was shocked._

_How could someone so young have learned such a powerful technique?_

_Naruto threw himself at Tsunade, interrupting her thoughts, his clone supporting him by trying to act as a decoy or a distraction._

_However, the blonde flicked the clone, making it explode into smoke, and then used her finger and pressed it hard on Naruto's forehead, causing him to stumble backwards and dispel the technique. Utilizing his confusion, she flicked the original in the nose, causing him to reel back from the blow and fall unconscious._

"_Jiraiya, you taught him that?", she said accusingly, to which Jiraiya put up his hands in defeat._

"_He learned that mostly by himself in a couple weeks through sheer effort.", he admitted, stunning Tsunade and Shizune._

_Looking at the unconscious form of Naruto sprawled on the ground, she thought over the words that Naruto had described her with. Seeing him, she felt slightly confused. She needed time to think this over._

'_Naruto, you are one interesting gaki.', was something all 3 conscious shinobi there would attest to._


	16. A Lot At Stake

This is still my first fanfic! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

I'm still working on the edits, so please be patient.

If you're frustrated by the lack of Kurenai in the recent chapters, as I am starting to be, never fear! This will end soon. Well it better.

In case you have not noticed, not everything in this fanfic follows canon. There will be no Orochimaru popping up at this point.

_…_

_

* * *

  
_

"_Aah. My head!", Naruto sat up in his bed, clutching his throbbing head. "B-bed? Why am I in a bed? Last thing I remember happening…"_

_Naruto had a quick, painful flashback of the old medic sannin flicking him on the nose, and then darkness flooding his vision._

"_That would explain my nose feeling like it was crushed by a meteor."_

_He accepted this to be fact, but he was surprised. That lady had enough power to knock out him just by flicking? And Jiraiya recalled the times she actually beat him up. That thought caused him to shiver involuntarily. If one flick was that bad, he certainly did not want to get on her bad side!_

_"So you're awake.", said a dangerously familiar voice. He opened his eyes fully, adjusting quickly to the light that was swarming his eyes, feeling like a barrage of pins and needles constantly irritating him._

_His irises dilated before focusing. Naruto rubbed his eyes quickly, eliminating the remnants of the nearly nonexistent pain he had been suffering._

_He saw Tsunade looking at him with a slight amount of contempt on her face, and a smirk. "I got you good, didn't I? I told you I only needed to use a single finger."_

_Naruto folded his arms and grunted. Despite his mind screaming for revenge at the statement, and him wanting to show the sannin for attempting to make his dream seem like a joke, he did not exactly want a repeat performance. It probably wouldn't be good for his health, he reasoned._

"_Now that I think about it", Jiraiya's teammate got back into her thoughtful pose. "I didn't even have to move from that spot… hah. What a weakling." Tsunade was getting a kick out of pissing off the genin. Watching the emotions of rage and anger flicker across his face as she shot him down verbally was priceless._

"_Oh shut up.", Naruto mumbled, sticking out his tongue. "That was a lucky shot."_

_Tsunade glared, and raised a fist to pummel Jiraiya's apprentice through the wall and into outer space, but then thought better of it, and relaxed her muscles, calming herself down. There was a reason why she had gone there, anyway._

_She couldn't help but have her mood quirk up slightly at the déjà vu from the experience. Here she was, almost about to smash a youngster into oblivion. It was just like back on her genin team, except replacing Naruto with a perverted Jiraiya. Like sensei, like student, she supposed._

"_Did you really learn the Rasengan in a couple of weeks?", she asked curiously. Naruto cocked an eyebrow. She did seem serious, and not joking. And genuinely curious, to boot. She didn't seem to be mocking him, which was appreciated by him._

"_Yup! Wasn't too hard for the best Hokage ever!" Naruto boasted confidently, giving a prideful grin that stretched his cheeks. His aura flared up excitedly, as if giving support to his claim._

_Tsunade couldn't help but smile at his antics. He reminded her so much of Dan and Nawaki… that it was almost painful. Thinking about that caused her heart to pang and twist painfully. She remembered their dreams as well…_

**Flashback**

"_Someday, I'm going to be the best Hokage ever!", a young boy shouted loudly outside of the Academy. A blond haired girl with a blue and purple kimono smiled, before flicking the boy on the forehead, eliciting a yelp of pain and a "hey!"._

_Tsunade raised an eyebrow at this proclamation, and then took a necklace that she wore from her pocket. It was an heirloom from the first Hokage. It had a blue shining crystal in the center that glittered fabulously._

_Still smiling, she put the necklace around the boy's neck and kissed him lightly where she had flicked him earlier, making the smaller boy blush slightly._

"_One day I bet that'll happen. And think of this as a good luck charm."_

**End first flashback, and another flashback**

"_I'll become Hokage of Konoha…", a young man only barely beyond his adolescent teenager years confidently stated, from atop the Hokage monument. He had one of his muscled arms wrapped around a blonde blushing girl around his age. "I'll get my ideas heard – I'm sure it'll save thousands of shinobi lives all across the map. I'll be able to protect my subordinates, and the villagers."_

_Tsunade giggled at this. She slowly bent down, pulling the necklace she had given to Nawaki, her little brother, and had received once he had deceased._

_Pulling the man into a quick kiss on the lips, she put the necklace around the pale white haired man's neck, who grinned appreciatively._

"_One day I bet that'll happen. And think of this as a good luck charm."_

**End this flashback**

"_Your Rasengan is obviously incomplete, though.", Tsunade said with a slight frown, making Naruto rub the back of his neck._

_The gaki thought for a moment, before piping up with one of his large beaming smiles, "That's something I'll fix! Should be simple – only a week's amount of work?"_

_Tsunade was the one to raise an eyebrow here. This was one of the Yondaime Hokage, Minato's favorite techniques. He had gotten the technique to a powerful state in no time limit shorter than two years. And here was a blonde brat who was declaring that he could get from his previous state, which had only taken him at max 2-3 weeks to achieve, to a workable level._

_Four weeks total? Four weeks would be less than one twentieth of the time!_

_Impossible. He may have gotten the basic steps down, but no one could surpass Minato in that field. He was known for his brilliancy, and was the most ingenious and hard working idiot that Tsunade had ever encountered in her entire life span as a shinobi._

"_Want to bet on that?", the medical sannin asked. Naruto looked surprised at this. A bet? He had never really competed in many bets – and never knew many people who were interested in them._

_However, he did remember Jiraiya's discussion with him about Tsunade during the first part of the trip._

**Flashback**

"_Who is this Sunad-something something, anyway?", Naruto asked as they walked on a road about a mile from Konoha's front gates, stumbling ungracefully over the name._

"_It's Tsunade, Naruto. She's one of the legendary sannin, students of the Sandaime, like me.", Jiraiya answered. Naruto gawked at him._

"_Does she do that crazy shit you do, ero-sennin?"_

_There was a loud grunt as Jiraiya pretended not to hear that question. "She's known as the legendary sucker. For two reasons actually, one more prominent than the other. The first and more important is that she has this tendency to take on any bet, even impossible, when she gets in her gamboling moods. Which are pretty frequent. She loses a lot of the time, and has millions of ryo in gamboling debts following her everywhere."_

_Naruto nodded in acceptance. "What's the other reason?"_

_A red tint appeared on Jiraiya's cheeks, and he looked away with a slight giggle after coughing loudly. He composed himself and gave a smirk at his confused apprentice. "You'll learn when you're older, Naruto."_

_With that, the toad sage hummed to himself, putting his hands in his pockets while ignoring all of Naruto's further confused questions._

**End Flashback**

"_What kind of bet?", he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him._

"_Glad you asked.", Tsunade said with a tone of glee. "Well you see, it's a bet about the Rasengan. If you can manage to perfect it so that it's at least close to being on par with, say, Jiraiya's Rasengans, in… hmm… say a week, then you get something. Otherwise, I get something."_

"_What are these somethings?", Naruto asked._

"_You're not very familiar with bets, are you gaki?", she said with a frown. Naruto shook his head, acknowledging her statement._

"_Well, I get to choose something that you have to do if I win, and you get to choose something that I have to do if you win. And then we balance the sides to make it even."_

_Nodding, Naruto pondered. "I need some time to think about this. What do I have to do if I lose the bet?", he asked, hoping to get some ideas from Tsunade's ideas._

_Tsunade looked at him, and then smiled largely. "If I win, you give up your dream of becoming Hokage." Naruto looked at her with a disbelieving, shocked expression. Looking around at Naruto's possessions, she added, "and I get the money you have with you."_

_Naruto looked down at his side, where his moderately filled frog wallet lay. He groaned at her demands, then brightened up when he realized that he had something in this too._

"_If I win…", he said, thinking hard. A picture of Konoha appeared in his head as he brainstormed. "You have to become the Godaime Hokage." The medical sannin looked as if her eyes would bug out. "…and something else. But I can't think of anything."_

_Tsunade thought for a moment, before she realized something. She was never going to lose this bet. She decided that she might as well make it seem enticing. She bent down and got her necklace out, as she had done two times before for two others that were precious to her._

"_If you win, you also get my necklace."_

_The genin looked at the necklace. "That looks valuable."_

_Shizune had walked through the door, and was slightly ticked off that Tsunade had bet with a teenager. Betting her most precious item too, didn't help. Shizune could only hope that Tsunade would come to her senses and call off the bet before she actually lost her most precious possession._

"_It's a former possession of her grandfather – the first Hokage."_

_Naruto gaped. The First Hokage? An item of his would be worth thousands… MILLIONS… no BILLIONS of ryo! He voiced his opinion, to which Tsunade giggled._

"_Exactly. But you have to win this bet first.", she said, wagging a finger._

"_There's no way I'm going to lose this bet!", Naruto stated confidently. Seeing his expression filled with such determination and vigor, Tsunade was almost inclined to believe him._

_**Later…**_

_The ground was ruined. There were fallen trees, charred in various areas, littering the burnt ground. The unmistakable stench of chakra filled the area. Various boulders, supposedly standing about, had massive chunks and gashes. Though all of the markings seemed spiral shaped._

_It was about ten to twenty miles from the nearest civilization. Apart from the trashed grounds, it was relatively peaceful. Birds were flying around from fallen branch to fallen branch, chirping to each other. Random animals seemed attracted by the smell of chakra, and had come to the place to examine the situation, before leaving._

_In the middle of it all, lying down, wheezing slightly, was a dazed yet excited Naruto Uzumaki. He grinned, looking at the destruction and damage he had caused. His jumpsuit was slightly torn, and he was completely worn out from all the exertion._

"_It's getting there…", he told himself. "This is only day three! I have four more days! I've made so much progress already… imagine how powerful my Rasengan will be after this week!"_

_His words sparked courage and encouraged his spirit, kindling the willpower that he was known well for by his senseis and team._

_Meanwhile, a slightly upbeat Tsunade was walking. She had lost a couple more bets, but she didn't let that deter her spirits. She had drunk a bottle of sake – very fine sake, with her lunch, and it made her happy. Sake did that to her. It was like a drug – a very pleasant drug. She put her hands behind her head and strolled around watching the environment around her._

"_Better check on the brat.", she said, snorting as she thought of the bet. "All talk, no action. That's all I bet he is."_

_Suddenly, Tsunade stopped. She froze slightly, smelling the chakra usage and burnt trees and grass. Her shinobi mind, while dulled slightly from lack of usage, whirred analytically as it analyzed her surroundings._

'_Smells like a battle just occurred about to the north of here. I better check it out.'_

_Her shinobi instincts kicking in, she gracefully shot forward, chakra channeling smoothly through the soles of her feet as he approached the suspicious area. The medic's body's reflexes were superb. She was able to go at her full speed, dodging and weaving through branches and other objects in the way._

_Noting the strengthening aura of battle, she ducked behind a boulder that seemed to have been destroyed on the other side. She didn't hear any battle like noises – the only indication that anything had gone on that had involved jutsu was the chakra stench._

_Peeking around the boulder quickly, she was amazed to find an orange clad gaki Naruto lying down in the dirt, breathing heavily._

_Sudden realization struck her. If there was no battle, and only Naruto, that meant that he caused all this! Impossible! No one had that much stamina! Not even a chakra freak that Jiraiya had told Tsunade Naruto was._

_Examining Naruto from her position, she could tell, using her medic nin observational skills, that he was suffering from chakra exhaustion, not injuries. That was relieving. It meant less work for everyone. It was mild, to be honest, but it was there. She noted that his right hand was slightly burnt, as well._

_Tsunade was pretty amazed. This brat really did train hard. This new revelation completely shattered all of her thoughts on him before. But what happened next made her even more amazed._

_Naruto was stirring slightly. He looked at his burnt hand and chuckled. "I still have enough chakra for a couple more tries." He shifted slightly, getting up to his feet slowly. Tsunade only gaped at him, still not moving from her position._

'_He can still move!? Any other shinobi would have quit by now!'_

_Rolling up his sleeve, he formed a ram seal, and a clone appeared. He created, quickly, a blue spiraling orb, which to Tsunade's amazement, was a large cry from his previous Rasengans. It was more of a spiral, and more like that fiery ball of destruction she was used to from Jiraiya and Minato. She could tell, however, that it still required work, but it was getting there. That much was obvious._

_She watched as he stumbled slightly, still running, and shoved his hand into a different boulder from the one she was hiding behind, and watched as it exploded into a cloud of dirt and dust with a large exploding noise._

_As the dust cleared, she saw a Naruto who was panting hard. It was obvious to the on lookers that he had been training for a while. He suddenly twitched, and then fell unconscious. The blonde sannin rushed up to him, examining him quickly, looking him over. She breathed, relaxed. It was only exhaustion. And minor cuts because of flying debris from the impact._

_She looked upon his fallen body with a newfound respect for the gaki, and thus for the ninjas of Konoha – the determination and willpower that he showed – the will of fire._

_She smiled, and picked up the orange unconscious ninja, but not before pecking him on the forehead with her lips, an act that caused Naruto to mumble incoherently and move about in his sleep. Tsunade giggled, and carried him back to the hotel room. Little did she know, a white haired sannin was watching her from afar._

'_I knew bringing Naruto with me was going to be good for Tsunade.', he thought with pride. 'Sooner or later, everyone falls victim to the hurricane that is Naruto.'_


	17. New Arrivals

This is my first fanfic! I still don't own Naruto!

Sorry about the last chapter being in all italics. It was more or less an extension of the chapter before it, because I ended it prematurely, in the middle of a flashback.

This chapter will finish up the last flashback, and then move on.

**Fuyuriku: **"Hmmn, pretty good, though I don't really get it why you had to make this chapter and parts of the previous ones in flashback instead of just typing it as it progressed. :p O well, till the next time."

I actually didn't want to show you guys the entire training trip, as some parts will be revealed later. I couldn't find a way to skip large parts of Naruto's training without making it seem awkward, so I decided to go with flashbacks.

**Actionliker: ** "erm...why is this chapter in italics? no offense but i feel like im reading a whole page of flashbacks instead of the present"

Well it is a page of flashbacks, and it isn't the present. Sorry about that.

**Cobra0000: **"Good story, but i hate that all the story's are about Naruto just foregiveing everyone for that they did to him. I wish there were story's of Naruto leaveing and going else where or something and not protecting people of the leaf."

I might try a story like the one you suggested later on. I'm focusing on this one for the time being, though.

**.: "**The lack of kurenai is a bit fustrating haha  
good story so far though it wouldn't hurt to stray a bit from the canon to spice things up a bit. Maybe you should include more team bonding for naruto or something"

Thanks for all the reviews and feedback! I only specifically respond to reviews I feel need them or have questions.

Kurenai isn't really back this chapter, but should be making a reentry soon enough. I'm trying to stick with canon a bit, and diverge a bit as well. I hope you like what I have planned.

* * *

(Note: italics still mean flashbacks. This chapter begins with a flashback, so don't be confused.)

_The week had passed slowly but surely. The fate of Jiraiya and Naruto's trip, whether it was a success or a failure, rode solely on the outcome of the bet between the gaki and the gambling sannin. The perverted toad sage was trying to think up ways to get Tsunade to go to Konoha even if Naruto lost the bet, as he wasn't sure which way the bet would go._

_Over that week, Naruto said barely anything about his training, and had worked on his Rasengan by himself. Sometimes he came to the pervert for advice, but most of the time he did everything alone._

_This made Jiraiya pretty proud in his little apprentice, because it showed that he was beginning to mature (he supposed). But that could mean that the bet could easily go either way – in Naruto's favor or Tsunade's favor._

_It meant that the blonde gaki wasn't hindered by the limitations of Jiraiya (namely, his addiction to doing research and being, well, perverted). It meant that he could train however long he wanted to the extent he wanted. All great shinobi went through a period of their life where they trained solely alone, honing their skills through perseverance and sheer determination, two key traits that Naruto possessed._

_It also meant that no one was there to oversee his training. Suppose he was doing it all wrong. If he was training incorrectly, not only would he get bad results and waste lots of time (time which, at this point, he did not have), he would get into a habit of using the bad method, getting bad results. Bad habits were a sensei's pet peeve._

_A sensei who had a student that had a bad habit that was a huge barrier in their progress had to not only break the student out of the bad habit, which was hard enough, but then start all over again and teach them the right way. This meant wasted effort on both of their parts, as they had to do extra work in order to learn the same material another student without the habit could have done, and even more wasted time._

_Standing outside of the hotel that they were staying at, was Jiraiya, with his bags, his possessions, all with him, either tucked into storage scrolls or in his travel bags, which were latched onto his back._

_This was because, no matter which way the bet went, this was the last day they would be staying at the hotel. If Naruto won, they'd leave that day for Konoha. If Tsunade won, he'd try to convince Tsunade on that day to come with them, and then Naruto and Jiraiya would leave anyways (with Tsunade or without)._

_A smirking blonde Tsunade was next to him, leaning against the wall to the hotel. She had her arms folded across her chest. A nervous Shizune was standing not too far from both of them, a confused Ton-Ton (the pig) held tightly in her arms._

"_I knew I'd win the bet. That brat doesn't even have the guts to show up.", Tsunade said with a short laugh. Jiraiya snorted._

_Guts was something Naruto had, if nothing else. One hundred times more than necessary, if he had to estimate a guess. It was one of the genin's best traits. He would never back down, even against an opponent a thousand times stronger than him – even a million. It was something the toad sannin was secretly proud of, and it was a trait that he could tell that Naruto got from his father._

"_Why don't you just leave?", Tsunade asked, slightly irritated. "He's not going to show – he's probably already running back to Konoha, afraid to lose." She let out a small bark of laughter that was dry and forced._

_Suddenly, there was a woosh of air as a figure leapt from who knows where and in front of the sannin. The figure's blond hair ruffled in the wind, and his orange sleeveless shirt ruffled slightly, creating a rather cool effect. His back was to the sannins, and when he turned, his electric blue gaze fell upon them._

_All in all, they had to admit, it was a cool entrance. Jiraiya was about to speak up and tell him so, when Naruto shattered it._

"_NARUUUUTO UZUMAKI HERE! I'M GONNA KICK YOUR BUTT! BELIEVE IT!"_

_He threw out a fist into the air, and the thumb popped out, making a pose that was eerily like Might Guy's._

_The sannins and Shizune sweat dropped. So much for being cool._

"_Alright brat. I'll admit you have guts for showing up.", the medic sannin said. "But now is the deciding moment. Let's see if your Rasengan is any good."_

_Tsunade inwardly smirked. It was easy for her to win. She just had to say that it was a bad Rasengan regardless of what Naruto threw out, because it was obvious that Naruto's Rasengan was going to be a far cry from Jiraiya's._

"_Alright – HERE WE GO!"_

_There was a poof as a shadow clone appeared next to Naruto, who stretched his hand out. They watched carefully as the shadow clone swirled the chakra around. They watched as a flattened sphere formed, with a slight whirring sound._

'_Heh.', Tsunade thought. 'It's a **flattened** sphere. Any half assed Rasengan's going to be a spherical sphere. He's already lost.'_

_Suddenly, the flattened sphere started to expand on the shorter dimension, making it more sphere-like every moment._

'_W-what?'_

_The shadow clone dispelled, leaving a proud looking Naruto with his hand high in the air as he held a blue spinning sphere that was very close to Jiraiya's Rasengans._

_Slamming it into the ground, he shouted. "RAAAAASENGAN!"_

_There was a blast of smoke, and when all the smoke blew away, there was a giant crater in the ground._

_Their jaws dropped. "Very nice, Naruto! Well done!", Jiraiya shouted happily, clapping his hands._

_Shizune looked nervously at her master, and she half expected Tsunade to try and deny that Naruto had won. But to her surprise, Tsunade grinned._

"_Well done, brat. You won."_

"_YEAAAAAAAAH! I won! I'm undefeatable!"_

_The black haired apprentice to the medic sighed deeply. She was definitely relieved at this. No bashing of people's heads. However, she was curious as to what brought on this change. Tsunade was normally very reluctant to go anywhere near Konoha after the death of her brother and lover._

_Meanwhile, Tsunade had a genuine smile on her face. Her 'will of fire', as Sarutobi would put it, had been ignited – inspired by the antics of one blonde shinobi. She would uphold the dreams of her late brother and lover, and would make their wishes and ambitions come true._

_Looking to the sky, she smiled. 'If you were here, Dan, Nawaki, you would like Naruto Uzumaki.'_

(AN: Finally… the training trip is over. I thought it would never end _)

Back in Konoha, the four of them went to Ichiraku's Ramen Shop, where Jiraiya treated them to ramen. Naruto quickly gobbled up 12 bowls, much to the chagrin of the sannin. Tsunade and Shizune just laughed at the poor man who was staring regretfully at his near empty wallet.

They decided to split up, now that Naruto had no reason to stay with them. The medics and the toad sannin went off towards the Hokage Tower to meet up with the old man and make him aware of their arrival. Naruto went off to go find his team.

Walking back into the familiar streets of Konoha, Naruto grinned. He couldn't wait to show off everything he'd learned to his teammates. He pictured the expressions on their faces when they saw his Rasengan, and almost laughed out loud.

As he strolled about, searching for his team, he passed by Shikamaru and Ino, the latter carrying a small bouquet of flowers from the Yamanaka flower shop.

Naruto started grinning like a madman. "Hey – you two dating?", he questioned bluntly, stunning the two.

"Why would I date this lazy baka?", Ino said harshly, bonking the pineapple haired man next to her on the head, who muttered something about troublesome blondes.

"How was the trip?", Shikamaru asked directly, being completely straightforward and not engaging in idle banter like others would.

"It was fine! Learned a lot of stuff, and convinced Baa-chan to become Hokage."

"Baa-chan?", Ino and Shikamaru chuckled at the pet name for who everyone else called or would call Tsunade-sama, or Hokage-sama, unless they were in a severely masochistic mood that day.

Tsunade had tried to get Naruto to stop calling her that, but to no avail. It was a habit. And it stuck. And it fit – she was indeed older than him. Much to Jiraiya and Shizune's surprise, she actually let Naruto call her that, as she had begun to grow fond of the boy (not in a romantic sense, in a more maternal way).

The reunited team eight began to talk to each other casually, catching up on things they missed, such as funny stories from the training trip, or especially notable or boring missions.

"Why do you have flowers in your hand, anyway?", Naruto wondered out loud to Ino.

"You didn't know?", the blonde female of team eight responded. "During your trip to where ever, apparently, two creepy goons, one being Itachi Uchiha – you know, Sasuke-kun's evil older brother, and the other being some Kisame something… they entered the village without setting off the alarm. Both are S-ranked shinobi wanted by most, if not all, of the hidden villages."

"Alarm?", the other blonde asked curiously.

"Troublesome…", Shikamaru drawled before explaining. "There's a sort of giant bubble shield that surrounds Konoha. If a foreign chakra entity enters said shield, it will alert the barrier team, who will then alert the Hokage, or engage the source themselves."

After seeing Naruto's nod of comprehension, Ino continued her story. Naruto had to admit, Ino was good at telling stories. Shikamaru noted this, but realized that it was probably from telling gossip all the time.

"Asuma-sensei, Kurenai-sensei, Kakashi-sensei and Guy-sensei all confronted the two. Afterwards, Asuma-sensei was admitted to the hospital for chakra exhaustion. Kurenai-sensei was admitted for wounds ranging from minor to moderate. Kakashi-sensei was in a coma for about a week, and then had to be put on physical therapy after that. Guy-sensei got in for minor chakra exhaustion, and moderate wounds."

"Wow.", Naruto whistled. If he had doubted the strength of an S-ranked shinobi before, those thoughts all vanished instantly. For anyone (albeit with a partner) to be powerful enough to take on and win against four jounin level shinobi, that was amazing.

"And get this.", Ino said. "According to the reports by Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei, Kakashi was taken out by a single powerful blow."

"Holy shit.", Shikamaru breathed, not having heard that part.

"I asked Kurenai-sensei about it. One moment, Kakashi-sensei and Itachi were fighting in taijutsu and a slight bit of ninjutsu, when suddenly Itachi started rambling about the Sharingan, and seconds later, Kakashi-sensei fell unconscious and Itachi started bleeding from the eyes."

"So you guys are visiting the hospital?", Naruto confirmed, and his team mates nodded yes. "Mind if I join you?"

Seeing no resistance, he joined them in walking towards the hospital, talking along the way. Naruto was easily the loudest there. He was coming up with thousands of ideas about how Itachi had taken out Kakashi-sensei.

"Somehow I doubt that Itachi would have found the time to find a camouflaged chameleon that happened to be wielding a poisoned senbon needle.", Shikamaru said, effectively interrupting one of Naruto's recent theories.

The blonde orange wearing ninja opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when they heard a loud yelp of pain coming from nearby. Naruto cringed hearing this, as it reminded him a little too well of the beatings he received as a child with an age in the single digits.

The squad rushed towards the source of the noise, and saw a very intriguing sight. There was a boy with what looked to be purple lines drawn using make up in a black full body costume that resembled a cat, with a circle design. The strange boy had a large clunky object on his back wrapped in bandages. This reminded the trio of their sensei, who wore a dress using the same methods.

The cat resembling boy was holding, with a bit of disgust, a terrified and struggling child, who they recognized as the Hokage's grand son, Konohamaru. Behind the boy was a girl with blonde hair that was tied into four short pony tails. She carried a large black object that resembled a gargantuan version of a closed fan. The girl had a look about her that was filled with arrogance and confidence, and her icy glares made you want to shrink.

"Kankuro… I don't really care what you do. Just don't get us in trouble, 'kay?", she said, referring to the boy, who looked at her.

"This punk was askin' for it. I'll be fast."

"Hey! You there! Yeah you – the one with the makeup!" Naruto shouted, pointing at the boy called Kankuro, who snarled at him while muttering, 'it's war paint, dumbass.' "What's your problem? Put him down!"

"This kid is toast. You don't just run into someone – that's just rude.", Kankuro sneered, raising a fist to punch the trembling boy in his grasp.

"Troublesome… this is becoming more complicated than it's worth.", Shikamaru said with a groan, putting his hands in his pockets.

"You better put him down!", Naruto called out, clenching his fists threateningly. Ino did the same, as if supporting his claim. They left the unspoken threat hang in the air.

"Yeah? What'll you punks do about it?", Kankuro said with a smirk.

Naruto wasn't one to back down from a challenge. Channeling chakra through the soles of his feet, he blasted off towards his smirking opponent, he threw a punch. Kankuro laughed at this, and used his free hand, the one not holding the boy, to catch the fist and stop it completely in its tracks.

His smirk deepened. "Is that all you've got?"

The smirk turned into a shocked expression as Naruto grinned at him, and burst into a poof of smoke.

'A clone? Then…'

Kankuro looked for the gaki, but found it hard to do so as the dispelled clone had created a sort of smoke screen, partially blinding him. To clear his vision, he stumbled backwards, just in time to see three Narutos falling from the skies, trying to catch him off guard.

As the Narutos landed, and prepared to strike, a cool voice interrupted the processions.

"Kankuro. You're a disgrace to our village."

Twirling about, they saw a red haired boy with an expressionless face standing on top of a branch of a nearby tree overlooking the area. He had no expression on his face, but his eyes revealed malice and bloodlust. The boy was shaking slightly from excitement, an act that seemed to scare his two companions, the blonde girl and the boy with the cat costume, a bit.

"Gaara, but they star-…", Kankuro started, whining, but was cut off.

"Shut up. I'll kill you.", was the cold response he got from the redhead.

Team eight shivered involuntarily at this. The way the redhead had spoken those words… it was almost like a curse. His language was simple, but the message was clear. Despite him talking rather quietly, everyone heard his every word.

It was almost as if he actually might back up his threat. It wasn't an everyday "I'll kill you", like one that an older sibling might say to a younger sibling when the latter had pulled a prank. It wasn't a meaningless, baseless threat. This one hovered in the air, and the way the redhead held himself – reeking of killing intent and bloodlust… it made everyone feel as though he might carry it out.

There was silence as the tension was too thick for anyone to comfortably say anything.

Finally, Kankuro dropped Konohamaru onto the ground, and then turned to walk away, gesturing for the blonde girl to follow.

"Who are you guys?", Naruto inquired as they walked away.

"The name's Kankuro. Don't forget it, punk.", said the black costumed man, looking over his shoulder to see them as he spoke.

"Temari.", the female stated simply, not even turning to meet his gaze.

"Gaara of the Desert.", the redhead drawled. He raised an eyebrow, as if interested. "And what is your name? I'm interested…"

"Uzumaki Naruto! Future Hokage! Believe it."

Gaara nodded slightly.

"Judging by your head bands…", Shikamaru observed. "You must be from Suna. It's a breach of the treaty between Konoha and Suna and could cause diplomatic incident if shinobi of one village trespasses another without good reason. Why are you here?"

"Well observed, but it seems you're out of the loop, pineapple head.", Temari said coolly. She reached into a pocket and showed them a passport. "We're for the Chuunin Exams."

Seeing the confused expressions on their faces, Kankuro piped up. "You haven't heard of them? Man – you guys are _really_ out of it. Every 6 months, there's an exam where genin all around compete to get promoted to chuunin, the next highest rank of ninja. This time it's Konoha."

"Our jounin-sensei hasn't talked to us about it, but she'll probably get around to it.", Ino noted.

"We'll see you around.", Temari said with a slight wave as the three Suna genin walked away. The Konoha squad just watched them leave with a slight amount of confusion.

"What a drag…", Shikamaru observed lazily. "First boring D-ranks, and then an examination? This is becoming troublesome…"

'Uzumaki Naruto, hmm…? … maybe… maybe you'll be the one.. to prove my _existence_!', thought Gaara as he walked behind his comrades as they left the scene.


	18. The Examination Begins!

This is my first fanfic, but I don't own Naruto.

Aww… so like my break ended. This means school is up again, so this _may_ be the last update in a while.

Depends.

I will be following canon a bit, but will diverge quite a bit. I don't know about you guys, but lately I've been reading too many fanfics where Naruto learns a thousand jutsu, making him super powerful. If you're looking for one of those fanfics, you should stop reading this one. Personally, I dislike those, because it goes against the Sandaime's teachings. As he said to Orochimaru, the best shinobi isn't the one who knows the most jutsu. I feel like making Naruto like this would kill the entire anime… but you can tell me if you don't agree.

He's going to be powerful for the Chuunin Exams, but definitely not as powerful as many other fanfics make him.

* * *

The room was densely packed. Seated at his desk in the front of the room, was the Hokage. He wore his red and white circular hat that was extremely wide. He was looking at multiple papers strewn across his desk.

Finally, he looked up from his reading. There were approximately thirteen jounin in the room, each looking at him impassively. There was a slightly unnerving silence in the room, as they all waited for the Hokage to begin the discussion.

"You know why you are here.", he said gruffly, creating a small smoke ring from his pipe as he eyed the jounin.

"The Chuunin Exam is to be held here in Konoha this time around, so we get the benefit of sending in more teams.", he explained. "As a result, all of your teams have the opportunity to enter. It is up to you, the jounin-sensei, to decide whether your team should be considered for the examination. As I know you all understand, the Chuunin Exams are extremely difficult. And dangerous too. They will be competing against top genin from other shinobi villages and nations. In years past there have been misfortunate losses, as well. Think wisely."

There was a slightly awkward pause as the Hokage let this information sink in.

"We'll be starting with the rookie jounin-sensei.", he explained. "Hatake Kakashi, sensei of team 7. Yuuhi Kurenai, sensei of team 8. Sarutobi Asuma, sensei of team 10. Please step forward."

The jounin senseis of the room split apart in the middle to allow the three named shinobi step forward. They bowed slightly. "Hokage-sama".

A lone jounin stepped forth, ahead of the other two. He had long, gray spikes for hair that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. He wore a Konoha shinobi headband that covered one of his eyes, and masked the majority of the rest of his face with a black mask.

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled into an upside down U as he smiled. "I, Hatake Kakashi, jounin-sensei of team 7, nominate my team of Akimichi Chouji, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke, to the Chuunin Exams."

There were some murmurs in the crowd, as he said this. Rookie genin usually stayed back a year in order to further hone their skills before taking part in such a dangerous examination.

"I, Kurenai Yuuhi", said Kurenai, stepping forward as Kakashi stepped back into the crowd of gossiping senseis. ", jounin sensei of team 8, nominate my team of Nara Shikamaru, Uzumaki Naruto, and Yamanaka Ino, to the Chuunin Exams."

Even louder murmurs and discussions here. Two genin teams? Not to mention the one with the dead last of his year…

Kurenai stepped back with a smirk, as one of her good friends stepped in front. He himself had a beard, and was twiddling with it idly.

"I, Sarutobi Asuma, jounin sensei of team 10", said Asuma, "nominate my team of Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata and Inuzuka Kiba, to the Chuunin Exams."

There were some loud protests and gasps of surprise. This was the first year in which every single one of the rookie genin teams were nominated to the Chuunin Exams. The Hokage quieted the suddenly noisy room by raising his hands.

"Alright. It seems as though the rookie genin teams will all be considered for the Exams. Now for the older genin teams…"

It was about two weeks after Naruto had returned from his training trip with Jiraiya, and about one week after Kurenai was released from the hospital. The entirety of team eight was gathered atop the hill that was centered around training ground eight, a field dedicated to said team.

It was a serene scene, yet so typical. After a day of hard practicing, they had all gathered to get some parting advice from their sensei, Kurenai, before she dismissed them.

Naruto was blabbering off, bragging and chatting animatedly with Shikamaru, who answered in one word or two word responses, while looking as lazy as humanly possible. Ino was joining in on their conversation at random intervals, sometimes criticizing Shikamaru's lack of motivation, etcetera.

Finally, Kurenai stopped watching them amusedly, and cleared her throat, catching the attention of all three of her genin.

"The Chuunin Exams are coming up.", she explained, before pulling out three small tablets. Each of them had one of the genin's names on them, and she passed each tablet out to the genin who had their name on it. "The Chuunin Exams is an examination that occurs every six months…"

Naruto looked at his tablet, tuning out Kurenai-sensei's lecture. After all, that kid from Suna had explained it rather well already. The tablet was wooden, and rather sturdy. Apart from his name, it had some official seals on them, made out of a special chakra ink that only the Hokage himself had access to. He was admiring the designs, and then looked up as Kurenai looked like she was done with her explanation.

"Alright. Pass these into room 301 of the Academy Building by tomorrow 1500. If you don't, you can't take the exam. You guys are dismissed. Good luck in the exams, by the way, if you decide on taking it."

"Yatta! Of course I'm going to take it!", Naruto exclaimed quickly

Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "Why would anyone take these troublesome exams? Even if I do get promoted… chuunin rank ninja have lots more work…"

Kurenai gave him a disapproving frown, before stating, "But most of the time, C-rank missions are even easier than D-rank missions. C-rank missions are mostly ranked so because they involve leaving the village. However, D-ranks are mostly just mundane chores that just build up team work."

The team had to stifle giggles and chuckles as they saw Shikamaru's interest perk at the idea of not having to work more.

However, as they dispersed, Naruto could tell that Ino was in a very confused state. Walking up to her, he asked, concerned, "Hey – Ino… you alright?"

Ino looked at him, before sighing. "I don't know if I want to take the Exams."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "How come? You're definitely pretty strong! And you're usually not this indecisive!"

"I dunno… like I'd have to go against the best of the best. That kid we saw a couple weeks back? Those kids from Suna were pretty scary and intimidating. I'm good, I'll say that, but I don't think I could beat them. Especially that kid with the funky gourd."

Naruto frowned, thinking, before grinning. "We're a team, remember? Shikamaru and I and you together? We make a powerful team! We can take down anyone! Believe it!" He squinted his eyes, and pumped a fist into the air energetically.

His blonde team mate smiled gratefully, giggling slightly. "Thanks, Naruto. I needed that. But I need to think about this on my own, kay?"

"Sure!", Naruto agreed. "And if you decide not to take the exams, Shikamaru and I will back you up 100%!"

Unbeknownst to them, Kurenai was watching them and listening in on their conversation from a short distance away. Hearing Naruto's last statement, she smiled.

'It's not all the time you see a shinobi with a personality and a heart quite like Naruto's.', she thought.

The three genin of team eight found themselves walking up the staircase that led to the second floor of the Academy the next day. Ino grinned as they strolled through the familiar hallways.

"Hah.", she said. "It's been forever since we've been here! Sure brings back memories huh?"

Shikamaru groaned, stretching his arms. "None of them worthwhile." Naruto grinned in acknowledgement, while Ino face palmed and hit the pineapple haired boy on the head.

"Baka!"

They couldn't help but notice a large crowd of genin hanging around the second floor as they were about to continue up to the third floor. Team eight was about to shrug it off and then go up to the third floor, when they overheard a conversation.

"Uchiha Sasuke!", a green full body spandex wearing boy with a black shiny bowl haircut declared. "I wish to fight against you and test whether my hard work can overcome true genius!"

"Humph.", Sasuke replied. "Alright, but it'll only take me 5 minutes tops to beat you down."

"Then let us fight!"

"I gotta see this", Naruto admitted, and Ino smirked. "Like that kid with the funky eyebrows can beat Sasuke-kun." Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, and decided to follow them.

And so they walked off towards an old training room in the Academy. It was large and rather empty, perfect for a small spar such as this. The occasional shuriken was stuck in the wall, and there were three training posts in the far corner.

The duck butt haired Uchiha stood at the ready, preparing to attack. The other boy stood about five meters away, staring at Sasuke with his round large eyes.

"I am Rock Lee.", he said loudly. "I am honored to fight you."

Sasuke grunted in response, before charging and throwing a chakra enhanced punch toward's Lee's solar plexis. Rock Lee easily caught the punch, and used his strength to latch on to his hand, stopping further movement from said hand.

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. Who was strong enough to just catch his fist like it was nothing? He didn't have time to ponder this as a well placed palm strike and the releasing of his hand caused Sasuke to fly backwards and slide across the ground.

Growling, the rookie of the year got up, and charged again, iffed that his attack was so easily brushed off. He threw a kick at Lee's torso, but his opponent used his bare hand and caught the raven haired boy's kick, holding onto it like he did with his hand earlier.

The spectators watched with amazement as Sasuke's foot couldn't budge. Rock Lee's grip was just too powerful. Then Lee let go of the Uchiha's foot, but before Sasuke could retract into a normal position, he crouched down, and kicked Sasuke with a powerful leg sweep that caused him to lose balance and fall on his ass.

Lee jumped up slightly, front flipping before bringing his foot down in an ax kick aimed at Sasuke's head, but before that could happen, Sasuke pushed himself backwards and out of the way of the attack. He got to his feet and quickly dusted himself off.

He got into a defensive position, preparing to find an opening in his opponent's defense, but he took his eyes off of Lee for a moment. Big mistake. Lee launched himself forward, crouched again, turned slightly and threw his right foot upwards in a strong upwards kick thrust that smashed into Sasuke's chin, throwing him high up in the air.

As Sasuke flew upwards into the air, Lee suddenly disappeared. His speed was just too fast! He reappeared right behind Sasuke off the ground, as if a midair shadow. Lee had bandages tightly wrapped around his arm, which unraveled slightly, and hovered in the air dangerously. As some of them moved to wrapped themselves around Sasuke's vulnerable torso, a shout burst through the air.

"LEE. THAT IS MOST UNYOUTHFUL!"

A man that looked like an older version of Lee was standing on the ground, with a disappointed and upset frown on his face as he looked up at the aerial antics.

Sasuke's challenger's circular eyes widened even more. The arm bandages stopped their wrapping around Sasuke and went back into their original place. He disappeared from behind Sasuke again, and reappeared on the ground, tears streaming down his face.

"I am very sorry! Guy-sensei!"

"You aren't supposed to use that technique on a whim! It seems… your flames of youth have dwindled!"

The flying Sasuke, now following gravity, hit the ground rather painfully. He groaned as he got up. How could he lose to such a freak? The freak even had a freak of a sensei!

He brushed himself off, and then stalked back over to his waiting team with hands in his pockets, who were all shocked.

"Oh man.", Shikamaru muttered carelessly. "Think that was all taijutsu?"

Naruto whistled. "Yeah."

Ino was gaping. "I've never seen anyone that fast… or good at taijutsu! Think it's some sort of ninjutsu that enhances your muscles?"

Shikamaru looked at her. "Not sure. Probably not."

And with that, team eight walked away from the scene. Team seven still remained there, Sakura babbling about how lucky the spandex wearing kid was, Chouji thinking thoughtfully about how powerful that kid was, and Sasuke brooding about having lost.

It was fortunate that team eight had left when they did. If they hadn't, they probably would have been scarred for life from what followed – "LEE!" "GUY-SENSEI!" "LEE!" "GUY-SENSEI!" and one large manly hug.

Headed up the stairs finally to reach their original destination, they tried to note possible threats to their team. Seeing how Rock Lee, although looking like a freak, beat their class' rookie of the year was eye opening on the phrase, "looks can be deceiving".

After passing in their tablets, they were quickly ushered to a rather large classroom. It had numerous tables, all of which combined could seat hundreds of kids. All around this classroom were genin. Seated on top of the tables, in the chairs, standing around, were them. The sheer number was rather intimidating to team eight as they walked in.

Some people seemed to stand out to Naruto, however. Of course, basically all of the genin looked rather strong. The team from Suna was there. All three of them looked calm and serious, which made them seem even more intimidating, as they seemed unfazed by any of the competition. There was a team from Konoha, with the Rock Lee kid that beat Sasuke. Rock Lee looked pumped up, more than anything, which was interesting. To his right was someone who looked cool and confident. He wore a thin, white shirt, and long gray pants. His eyes resembled Hinata's own with slightly gray irises. There was a girl there that looked like a possible threat as well. She had two buns in her hair, which were kept in place by senbon and kunai.

"Remember him?", Shikamaru asked, nudging Naruto and pointing at the Gaara guy that they met before. Ino shivered visibly upon seeing his emotionless face gazing at them.

"Yeah. What do you think of him?", Naruto half whispered.

"Look at that gourd on his back. A gourd that size doesn't hold kunai, or possessions like that. I don't know what it does, but it's probably important to him judging the size – he wouldn't be lugging something like that around if it wasn't. There's something inside that that's a little fishy to me… it seems heavy to me… doesn't he have to move around? Maybe he's a strong ninjutsu or genjutsu type… we'll see.", Shikamaru observed. Naruto had to agree – why wouldn't he? The logic was sound, and there wasn't anything proving him otherwise.

There was a whooshing noise to their rights, almost like an attack being performed. Turning to identify the source, they saw a boy older than themselves almost totally masked by bandages, and bandanas and his hitai-ate, which identified him as a shinobi from the Sound, leaping towards another boy, who had a Konoha headband on. The team didn't recognize the genin who was being attacked – he had silver hair and glasses.

The sound genin cocked his fist, as if about to throw a punch, and then indeed swung a right hook aimed at the Konoha shinobi's face. Tilting backwards to dodge the blow, the Konoha nin seemed to have successfully evaded the assault. To the surprise of all the spectators, he dropped to his knees as the lenses of his eye glasses shattered, and began retching, holding his ears.

The sound nin stood next to his vulnerable form, looking at him with a look of disdain and malice.

"…Do not underestimate the shinobi of the sound, Konoha nin…", the boy spoke in a deep, gravelly voice, before turning around to walk away. However, the doors that team eight had come in through were flung open harshly as a large man surrounded by multiple chuunin and ANBU walked in.

"Listen up, maggots!", he barked. Looking at the remnants of the earlier fight, he narrowed his eyes. "There will be no fighting between you punks… unless a proctor of the Chuunin Exams tells you otherwise."

Eyeing them carefully, he growled. "You guys look like a tough bunch. The first part of the Chuunin Exams starts now. Everyone find a place. It'll be a written exam."

'A written exam!?', Naruto thought worriedly, suddenly filling up with dread. 'How did they know that was my worst area?'


	19. A Test of Intelligence!

This is my first fanfic!

I don't own Naruto. Am I really supposed to say that? It's really just a pain in the ass to type every single time. For future reference, I **don't** own Naruto. That will remain to be true, unless something very strange occurs.

The previous chapter was a load of canon, just switching teams around a bit and you basically have the same thing as in the anime. This I know. Be patient, young padawan. Kurenai also didn't make a very big appearance in that one, only two slightly minor ones.

However, I am not about to divulge how much I will be following canon, or how much I will be going against canon. That would completely go against the reason why you even read. It's probably not as cool if I just give away what happens. That being said, even if you PM me or something, I'm probably not going to say anything. Just saying.

I've been reading the reviews. They've been good quality, so far. I've only gotten one flame, I suppose, which is cool.

Anyways, I'm not going to waste further time in this introduction. Here's Chapter 19!

* * *

The room was almost completely silent. It was eerie. It was rather counter intuitive. You would never expect a place with so many people – adolescents, to boot – to achieve a silence of such an extreme. There were no noises, except for the ambient noises of pencil scratching on paper, foot tapping, or other small sounds.

The tables that were so casually seated upon only about a half hour earlier were now seated at by the genin. They were working on the sheet of paper in front of them. Nine questions in front of them. No sweat, it was only nine questions. Nothing to get worked up over.

Seated in chairs all around the room, staring emotionlessly at the test takers, were chuunin and jounin, all of them scanning the room for cheaters or anything that broke the rules.

_The papers were all handed out, a single sheet to each genin in the room. Standing in front, was the famous interrogator, known for shattering the emotional barrier of every shinobi to pass into his jail cell, Ibiki Morino. He smirked. What a cool, collected bunch. Or at least some of them._

_He would have fun breaking them._

"_Alright. This test is ten questions. If you're not blind, you'll notice there are only nine questions on here. The test will be an hour long, and after forty five minutes or so, I'll give you the last question."_

_He noticed the confused expressions on the genins' faces, and inwardly smiled. This was going to be fun._

"_There are some specific rules.", he announced, catching the genins' attention once more, as they were starting to already work on the test. "The test will be out of ten points. For each question you get right, you get one point. There is no failing this test, unless you get a zero. If you get a zero, your entire genin team is disqualified."_

_His grin on the inside only grew exponentially as he saw the troubled and nervous emotions flicker across numerous faces._

"_Also, if you get caught cheating…", he warned. "You get 2 points off for each time. Now all of that is through, you may begin!"_

Naruto was sweating. Profusely. Staring at his paper, he glared at it. If he was Shikamaru, he'd say it was troublesome. And it was.

To put it simply, he was stumped.

The questions were ridiculously difficult. Well, Naruto mused, most written exam questions were 'ridiculously difficult' to him. But even so, he had a feeling that it was hard even for kids with more brain smarts.

But he couldn't worry about that.

He had a test.

And if he didn't get any questions right, his team would fail.

And it'd all be his fault.

He could already picture it. In his head, Ino was ranting. _'Boy, Naruto!'_, she would say, _'I thought I was going to be the person to let down the team. But you had to go about and ruin everything!'_ Shikamaru would be looking at him with a disappointed expression. _'I had a perfect ten out of ten. Those questions were so god damn easy! Man, Naruto, you're more troublesome than you're worth.'_

He couldn't let down his team! But how was he going to pull this off?

Naruto decided to reread the questions – maybe he misread or something and they were actually easier or something. One could hope, right?

_Question One: The ambush by a certain team of shinobi on Kannabi Bridge was a decisive victory resulting in the turning of the tides of the Third Great Shinobi War. Name the three subordinates and the commander of this mission, and name their roles. Give a description of the events that occurred during this attack._

Nope.

Ironically, he didn't realize that a blonde team mate of his in a different part of the room was in the same dilemma.

'I can't fail this exam!', Ino thought worriedly. 'If I let Shikamaru and Naruto down in the beginning of the exam… I'll just be the dead weight of the team again. What would Sasuke-kun think if I was the reason our team failed? I bet he thinks all these questions are easy! Oh man oh man what am I going to do!?'

Shikamaru was staring at his paper, thinking hard. His pencil was lying neatly on top of his exam, and his paper was lying there, untouched.

'This is a very peculiar exam.', he observed. 'Not only does cheating not make you fail the exam outright, his word choice even seems to imply that cheating is good. That is interesting.'

Shikamaru also looked at the questions.

'These aren't even questions a genin should know. The only way you'd know this is if you memorized the histories of every single nation. Preposterous.'

He pondered, and came to the conclusion that information gathering was the key to the exam.

'I wonder.', he said, pondering about his newly found revelation. 'Have my team mates figured it out?'

He leaned forward and looked at his team mates. He was slightly disappointed, but not totally surprised, to see both of them slumping slightly, looking downcast, as if in trouble.

'I should've known. They think the test is an actual test. I have to get this information to them. But first, I need to get the answers for myself.'

He scanned the room, looking for those who seemed to have completed the test. There were kids all around the room. Shikamaru could tell generally how well they were doing based off of their body language. If you were nervous, you probably weren't doing it right.

'Interesting. The boy over there seems to have gotten the answers.', he said, glimpsing a boy who was beginning to scribble furiously.

Shikamaru slumped in his chair slightly, and made it look like he was stumped. But in reality, he had hidden his hands below the table, making him able to use hand seals. Forming a rat seal, he manipulated his shadow and stretched and flattened it into a small, thin line. Using his clan's inherent mastery of shadow manipulation, he stretched out the shadow, connecting it to the boy's own, and then used a lesser known technique of the Nara clan.

While the Kage Mane no Jutsu allowed him to dictate movements and have the trapped follow them, an easy branch off technique of that was the opposite. It allowed the target to dictate movements and have him follow them. While an interesting concept, it was never put to much use as the idea didn't seem to have much merit. However, him doing so now allowed him to copy down the answers to all of the questions.

Releasing the technique, he looked over his paper which was now completely filled with plausible answers. Shikamaru smirked.

'Success.'

Now came the second part of his plan. Doing his Kage Mane no Jutsu, he divided his shadow into two parts, and stretched them out, weaving between chairs and people before connecting his shadow with Naruto and Ino's.

Shikamaru grinned despite himself as he felt the connection.

'Success again. Now to just pull this off…'

He bent over, leaning over the paper, and out of the corner of his eyes noticed that Naruto and Ino did the same. He raised his hand with the pencil and began tracing every single word of the answers he had copied from the other boy. Once he was done, he released the jutsu.

'Information gathering successful!', he mentally cheered. 'And no one caught me.'

A kunai suddenly flew through the air, flying towards Shikamaru, thrown by the proctor Ibiki himself. Shikamaru gulped. He had been caught? Had he seen the shadows moving or something? Or the identical movements by the team?

The weapon imbedded itself onto the paper to his left, much to his relief. He looked back at Ibiki, who was grinning at Shikamaru's neighbor with a sadistic smile on his face.

"Numbers 49, 61 and 125, you guys are all out."

The pineapple haired boy let out a giant sigh of relief, tuning out the small argument between the caught cheaters and the proctors. Well, that was close.

Naruto and Ino were grinning brightly. They had been in a state of panic, wondering about what to do. They had been conflicted between guessing, depending on the last question, and cheating.

Naruto had been about to move to lean over and try and peek at his neighbor's paper, when he suddenly found that he couldn't move. He was going to panic even more, when he found his arm was unable to follow his command and instead picked up his pencil and began to write on the paper. He grinned. He knew that technique anywhere. After all, it was the signature jutsu of his close friend and team mate, Shikamaru!

Leave it up to the team's genius to come up with a plan in a tough situation. Ino had to admit. The lazy baka had gotten her out of a sticky situation.

Now that the team had the answers to the first nine questions, they could only sit and wait for the tenth question.

Twiddling his fingers, Naruto observed the other genin around. Most of them were shaking slightly and subconsciously from nervousness or maybe even excitement ('nerds…', he thought). There seemed to be about 150 left, a sharp decline from the original 200 or so. Many had been caught cheating and forced out of the exam halls.

He laid back in his chair and closed his eyes, willing for the time to pass so he could get up.

Because this was, to be frank, damn boring.

He cracked an eye open. Five minutes left before the tenth question. It was easy how to do this. Even if he missed his, he would have 9/10, and seeing as Ino and Shikamaru would have that as well, they would obviously pass without delay. If they were really adventurous, they could even try and answer that last one, giving them an easy 30/30 if Shikamaru just pulled off that trick with the shadows again.

Now if only he could give the question and get this over with…

"Listen up, maggots! Here's the tenth question."

Ah.

"There are a bunch of things you need to know before you take this tenth question."

"More rules?", a genin complained loudly, gaining multiple grunts and noises of agreement from the test takers.

"Yes. More rules. My test, my call. Complain, and you're out of here. Any questions?", Ibiki stated coldly, looking the genin dead in the eye, as if daring them to speak.

He breathed, and leaned back, relaxing his pose, seeing the silence that ensued his statement. "The most important thing to note about the tenth question of this examination", he said slowly, building suspense. "is that you can choose to or not to take it."

"What?", another genin shouted out. "What's up with that?"

"Shut up!", Ibiki roared, silencing the crowd that was beginning to amass questions and complaints. "If you decide not to take the tenth question, you fail. That means you get a 0. Meaning your team mates fail, and your team fails, you all fail the Chuunin Exams and can try again in 6 months."

The previously silenced crowd began to complain and raise a racket again. A boy pointed at him.

"Hey! Why wouldn't we take the tenth question?"

"None of us are _that_ stupid!"

"What are you thinking? We'll all take it!"

"However", Ibiki continued, "if you take the question, and get it _wrong_, not only do you fail the exam, but your team may never compete in the Chuunin Exams, ever again!"

There was a stunned silence following this proclamation, but it was then shattered by an eruption of shouts.

"No fair! What's up with that rule?"  
"It's bad for us either way!"  
"You can't control our entire futures like that!"

Ibiki chuckled at these outbursts. In his mind, he was thinking, 'Fell for it.'

"So.", he said finally, ignoring the outraged genins completely. "What will you do? You're forbidden from communicating with your team mates. You have 3 minutes to come to a decision. Whether to or not to take this question. Be very careful when deciding… it could potentially change your entire ninja career… for the _worse_."

The room was relatively quiet after that, excluding the occasional cry of anger from one of the examinees or something. Team Eight was deep in thought, evaluating their options.

Naruto was livid. What was he supposed to do now? This tenth question thing was _not_ going according to plan! He was supposed to be able to get it wrong, and then still pass off with a 9/10… not risk getting it wrong and never becoming chuunin! There was no guarantee that Shikamaru could bail him out this time, and he had to consider his friends as well. If he got this wrong, not only would he condemn himself forever, h e would be tying Shikamaru and Ino down to a life as a genin.

The three minutes passed by way too slowly for the students. It felt like an eternity. The red line that was the second hand of the clock, moving from dash to dash at an agonizingly painfully slow pace.

"Alright. Time's up. It's crunch time.", the proctor and interrogation specialist said, rubbing his hands together.

"Raise your hand if you quit."

It was almost immediate – multiple hands shot up into the air rapidly.

"Examinees 3, 19, 103, you're out.", an official proctor from the side called out, crossing out numbers on a check board.

"Examinees 20, 24, 25, you're out.", another called out, grinning.

"Examinees 99, 100, 101, you're out.", a third added.

Naruto watched in curiosity as genin, with sullen expressions on their face, got up and stalked out slowly, flanked by their team mates who were emitting auras of disappointment but relief. He was seriously considering quitting right there. The pressure was too much!

"Examinees 75, 33, 35, you're out."

"Examinees 105, 123, 129, you're out."

He, despite himself, began to slowly raise his hand in defeat. He couldn't handle this much pressure – this much of his ninja career riding on something so slow like the tenth question of an examination.

"Anyone else?", Ibiki called out, trying to goad people into quitting. This was successful, as a couple more teams filed out. He looked with amusement at the orange clad ninja, noticing his faltering confidence.

'What if I get it wrong? What if I get it right? Maybe I should just quit – I can always take it next year…', he thought desperately. 'I'm not so great at writing questions… I don't want to let Shikamaru or Ino down.'

The proctor decided to give a small push. "You know, it's wise to know when to give up. Maybe this is the time for some of you."

Ibiki smirked despite himself as Naruto began to lift his hand, an act of giving up. To the genin's left was Ino, looking surprised, but not so much. She had secretly begun contemplating doing the same. To his right was Shikamaru, twiddling his fingers. He didn't look too surprised at Naruto's move.

Naruto looked out of the corner of his eye at Shikamaru. Shikamaru was a bright kid, Naruto knew that. And his best friend. The loudmouth ninja knew that whatever choice he made, Shikamaru wouldn't get too mad at him. But would he be able to face Shikamaru knowing that there was the chance that they all could have gotten it right?

He looked over at Ino, who was looking at him intently through the sides of her eyes, waiting for him to give up. Ino was smart too – at least better than him at this stuff. He really, really didn't want to screw up and give up if his team mates could do it. But he didn't want to screw up either.

He looked down at the wooden desk, thinking hard.

'What should I do? What should I _do_?'

He smirked. His black haired, pineapple head team mate would help him out, he was smart enough. And Ino could help Shikamaru through Shikamaru's shadows, right?

He felt slightly disgusted at his lack of confidence.

He was supposed to be the reckless, bursting of self esteem and pride in himself ninja of the team, damn it!

He was the kid who didn't become the depressed hollow shell everyone thought he would be after years of abuse in his early years!

He was the kid who stayed behind at practice every day, working till the early morning with Sasuke!

He was the kid who wasn't a fast learner, but worked harder than everyone else to make up!

He was the kid who did things without thinking about repercussions, who pranked people even if he knew he would be punished severely, who had the strength to stand up to anyone, regardless of size or strength.

He was Uzumaki Naruto.

And he wasn't about to let this bastard of a proctor make him give up with his stupid little test!

Ibiki grinned and opened his mouth to announce the disqualification of Naruto's team, but was interrupted suddenly.

No one anticipated what happened next. Not even Naruto himself. The hand of the genin slammed down on the table, hard, eliciting a large bang that caught everyone's attention.

"Listen up!", he shouted, pointing at Ibiki, whose eyes widened with obvious surprise. "I'm going to take this question and I'm going to get it right, too! Even if I get it wrong, I will still become Hokage! I'm not going to back down just because of a stupid little test! I never give up! Because that's my ninja way!"

Everyone was shocked at this proclamation. Ino and Shikamaru's respective eyes were widened with shock, their confidence returning to them. The remaining genin found themselves feeling rejuvenated with this – more confident, and stronger.

'Uzumaki Naruto, huh?', Ibiki thought, folding his arms as he closed his mouth. 'What an interesting little brat.'

'I see I have chosen well my next target.', the mysterious shinobi from Suna thought as he looked at his completely filled out paper with the first nine questions done in neat handwriting through bright, light green eyes, particles of sand flickering about around him.

'I'm going to have fun playing with _him_.', a woman standing outside of the building thought with a grin, before chewing rapidly on a piece of dango from her bag sitting next to her. She fingered a kunai, waiting.

"Very well then.", the proctor said. "I guess you will stay and take the question. However, you do not speak for everyone. Is anyone else going to leave?"

Despite Naruto's large confidence raising burst, Ibiki's question caused some additional teams to surrender and run.

Finally, the rest stared at Ibiki, none else giving up.

"You all pass!", he said loudly, planting a large smile on his face.

The genin face faulted. "W-what?"

"You didn't get it?", he said, still smiling. "The last question was to test your skills as a shinobi. As a chuunin, you'll be getting more missions outside of your villages, if you haven't had any so far. Some of these – most actually, will be relatively simple."

He closed his eyes slightly, as if reminiscing painfully. "But others, will be dangerous. And wrong information can get you hurt badly. Killed, even."

He put his hands behind his bandana, and undid the knot, letting the headgear fall down, revealing a burnt scalp with scars and marks that made everyone flinch.

"But what are you going to do about it? Run away, even if you don't know everything about the mission? You can't do that. You're a shinobi. You can handle it. You have to. You'll have to find a way to make things happen even in the darkest of times."

"That means, you'll have to go through with it. Accept the chances you have of winning, however slim, and work with all your might. That is what the tenth question was. You didn't know the question. You didn't know it's difficulty, or anything."

He saw realization come over the faces of the genin in front of him, and he smiled.

"But you stuck to it. Despite all the pressure on you – hell, you might've not even been able to make Chuunin ever, you stayed. And that's why you passed."

"What about the first nine questions?", one genin piped up suddenly.

"Those were tests of information gathering.", he answered in a matter of fact sort of way. "It shouldn't be surprising that you didn't know the answers to any, if you got any at all."

He walked over to the desk in the front of the room, and did some hand signs. A large drawer and a cabinet shimmered into view on said desk. He pulled out a manila folder filled with information, and threw it onto the desk.

"The only way you'd have known the answers to questions 1, 3, and 4 on your own, would be if you looked in here. Classified information on the Third Great Shinobi War. In fact, it would be illegal if you had looked at these beforehand, as these are strictly top secret. Contains lots of secret info that would be bad in the wrong hands."

He went back to the cabinet, pulling out a large binder, which he dropped onto the desk with a thud.

"Questions 5, 7, 8 and 9 were all answered in this. Even more top secret information – the only one with access to this binder are myself, the Interrogation crew, special authority, the council and the Hokage. In fact, the questions themselves were written by the Hokage himself for this test."

Ibiki saw people gasp in surprise, and then he put the binders in the cabinets and drawers. He did a string of hand signs, and the containers phased out of existence.

"What about number 2?", Shikamaru asked with a bored tone.

"Very perceptive, I see.", Ibiki said approvingly. "Oh that? I made that up. Complete bull shit. There were no flying monkey ambushes during the battle between the Shodaime of Konoha and Uchiha Madara at the Valley of End."

There were some laughs and chuckles throughout the crowd. However, everyone was put on high alert (except for the proctors and jounin), at the sound of a window shattering and smoke bombs flying in.

A long banner flew into the room, unraveling as it did so. Kunai were flung in after it, sticking into the walls and holding it up.

A woman front flipped onto the desk, effectively knocking Ibiki out of the way.

The woman, a purple haired lady in a trench coat, looked at the crowd while picking her teeth with a dango stick.

"I'm Anko Mitarashi.", she said with a grin. "And I'm going to be your next proctor."

Her grin became somewhat feral and crazed, having dark qualities about it that made everyone feel slightly nervous.

"The next week of your life is going to be _hell_.", she said, almost as if promising, and Naruto shivered with dread. She wasn't joking. At all.

* * *

And that's that!

Hope you liked this chapter! Sorry for it being SOOOOOO late! I don't know what came over me. I blame my Wii – Tatsunoko vs Capcom is too awesome.

I'll try and get out another chapter soon! It's possible the second part will go through multiple chapters – how many, I'm not sure. It's possible that it might not. You never know.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to review and say so!

Or just email me. Or something. PM, etc etc. That should all work and would all work.

Thanks for reading!!

**NOTE: I decided that if you guys review a lot, I will add a short omake (very short story) to the end of chapters. They might be humorous, etc, I dunno, but I will. A lot is a number I haven't decided yet, but for now just enjoy! And press that review button!**


	20. AUTHOR'S NOTE: update

Hey guys. I'm sorry to inform you of this, but I can't seem to keep up on my work. It's been terribly awful, with school work being pressuring, etc and etc.

This is technically up for adoption, or will be on near permanent hiatus until further notice.

Sorry you guys… thanks for all your reviews n' shit. They were helpful, and really great.

Thanks for reading my stuff!

If you want to email me about this note, just scroll down a bit.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

APRIL FOOLS!

Haha! I bet you already figured it out before. Or was tipped off by the long string of "dot dot dot"s. Either way, I'm not done with this story yet.

Sorry for making you guys wait for so looooong, but this chappie is pretty long. I wasn't lying about school work, either. I will almost definitely have this out by the end of this weekend. I also added the promised omake (do I sense a possible plural here?), as breaking 60ish reviews is a great achievement.

As always, keep reviewing, as it reminds me that I have priorities on working on this story as well!

Heh.

Hopefully I don't get flamed for posting another AN.

Don't kill me, guys!

T-then I can't write any more chapters! :3

Till next time,

LardBucket.


	21. Battle in the Woods!

This is my first piece of fan fiction!

Blah. Hopefully you've been liking the story so far. I've had some fun writing it and coming up with ideas

– it's a great way to pass time.

This chapter took especially long to write, because of multiple tests and quizzes, essays, and what not. Going to bed at 1-2 in the morning and waking up at 6 doesn't put you in a great mood.

Did any of you guys resent the fact that I made Shikamaru the savior in the previous chapter? I noticed that that might be the case. Sorry if that's true.

* * *

Responding to some Reviews

**Tristan76 wrote:**

'I know the pairing says that its Naruto and Kurenai, but is that in the romantic sense or as her role looks to be now, as a mentor? I really like this pairing for the reason that I have a hard time believing that Naruto would be able to relate to the opposite gender that are around his age, unless they are Jinchuuriki too. I mean that all his life, he had no to very few friends that were around his age and the people he spent the most time with would've been the older generation. So, even though he can act like a moron at times, he is intelligent and more mature than any other around his age. Which would make him attracted to those of the older sex, like Anko, Hana, and of course Kurenai. He would have an easier time talking to and expressing himself to someone that age who would understand why he might be socially behind and have the greatest chance of helping him. Anyway, I just wanted to know when Naruto and Kurenai were going to start to fall for each other or at least when will one of them fall for the other. That's if this is that type of pairing. If its not, then who is he going to be paired with? Well, this chapter was great as always. Until the next chapter. Later.'

You bring up many, many great points. I too feel that it's more fitting if he is paired with an older character (barring Yugito, who makes a damn fine pairing as well). While I haven't really put any romantic shtuffs into these chapters so far, I probably will later. I'm pretty sure it will be a NaruKure fan fic, but to be honest I'm not 100% sure. I guess we'll see?

**Johnny Eagle wrote:**

'What about question 6?'

Heh. Wow I'm retarded. I completely missed that. I'll change that when I find the time. Thanks for pointing it out, by the way! Much apprech!

**The Lonely Fox wrote:**

'Dont get me wrong as im very much enjoying the story but I dont see how the Hokage could let Narutos team go to the Chuunin Exams when they have done nothing but D - Ranks. Just something that irked me, as it stands they have no combat experiance whatsoever. If they have gone on missions I must have not caught them.'

I never really put much thought into that, actually. If I'm not mistaken, team 10 and team 8 were the same way in canon. They never got a very challenging mission (at least to my knowledge) before being nominated to the chuunin exams. I think it helps their case that Naruto knows Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, as well.

**Starfire99 wrote:**

'Naruto's birthday is October 10th, not October 1st.'

**Black Hearted Ninja wrote:**

"w8 a minute how are u going to follwo the cannon exactly there are many  
things tht will be different

naruto team 7 will most likely die when orochimaru attacks them  
except sasuke of course  
happened to the wave arc and if u sa that it never happened how will  
sasuke activate his sharingan  
3. since sarotobi is no longer the hokage how will orochimaru get anywhre near  
him to kill him and ho will tsunade fight him she does not stand a chance  
alone  
happened with itachi and kisame are they not supposed to incounter  
naruto and jiraya  
5 (most important one) wil you please read my stories and review them please"

Well, I'm not going to exactly follow canon, but the plot will resemble it somewhat.

To your first question, you'll have to read this chapter. For the second question, technically Sasuke has already awakened his Sharingan, but needed to 'reawaken' it. If you assume something traumatizing occurred or he never needed to reawaken it, it works. In actuality, Sarutobi is still Hokage. I believe I wrote that he said he would be retiring SOON, and that when that happens, Tsunade would take over. If he dies has yet to be seen. For your fourth question, technically they left the battle before they could finish checking whether Naruto was in Konoha. I will try and read your stories ;D, since you have read mine. Cheers.

Yeah, I realized. In that chapter, I wrote that the date was October 1st, but that his birthday was in 9 days. Thanks anyway!

Thanks to everyone that reviewed!

* * *

I'm on break right now, so expect the next chapter in a couple of days max.

I also promised an omake. I guess breaking 60 reviews (and almost reaching 70) should deserve some kind of reward.

One omake, coming right up!

**OMAKE!**

The sun had set recently, and practice for team eight of Konoha had ended for the day. As they cleared out, Ino walked up to her red eyed sensei, the famed Mistress of Genjutsu in Konoha.

"Yes, Ino-kun?", Kurenai inquired, looking at her pupil, curious as to why Ino looked like she wanted to talk to her.

"How do you stay so thin, sensei?", the blonde responded, as they continued to walk in the same direction, headed for town. "Sasuke-kun will never love me back if I'm this fat."

Kurenai had half a mind to shatter that fan girl type of thinking, but decided that it was in her and her student's best interest to hear this out beforehand.

"I've tried diets.", Ino said gloomily, as they passed through the marketplace of Konoha. "I've also tried starving myself." They walked past a full restaurant of civilians who were eating and chatting excitedly about the upcoming Chuunin Examinations.

"Anorexia?", her sensei said with disdain. "Ino that's a very bad road to take. You should know that from the kunoichi classes you took at the Academy."

"Yeah, yeah.", Ino said, looking sad. "I only tried it for a week, but then I got really hungry and couldn't maintain the self starving. It was like torture."

"I'm glad it didn't work out.", the Genjutsu Mistress commented. "You wouldn't be half the ninja you are now if you still starved yourself. You need to eat a healthy diet, you know. And healthy doesn't mean meager. You need the nutrients you get from food."

"You know.", Kurenai added. "If you wanted to look nice for Sasuke, it would be best if you just looked normal. Be happy with who you are. I think you're over thinking how he sees you. Let me tell you something about men. They're not as smart as us women think they are."

She gave off a short, musical laugh. Ino's lips quirked at that.

"So try eating healthier for a while, and see if it fits you. I mean, it's never too late to change if it doesn't work out.", Kurenai said. "And perhaps, the thing you really need to look better is to get those necessary nutrients from eating a healthy diet."

"How do you, sensei, look so thin, then?"

"I've noticed that it's not so much what you eat that matters the most, but how much you eat. You see diets, but the more important part about the diets is that you're eating really small portions." Her sensei noted. "I don't recommend you going on a diet, but rather, eat a variety of foods. Don't gorge yourself, and you'll do better."

"So eat relatively limited portions, and I'll stay skinnier? Thanks, sensei!", Ino said with a grin on her face at the new revelation.

They just happened to pass by the Ichiraku Ramen stand at that moment, where they stopped a Naruto practically absorbing ramen at an insanely fast speed. The ramen flew towards his open mouth like an object being sucked into a black hole. Stacks of empty bowls of ramen, totaling 43 to be exact, stood next to him. It was a rather unappetizing sight.

Sitting next to him, was an obviously larger and fatter Chouji Akimichi, also gorging on ramen. However, his speed of eating, despite being multiple times that of a normal person, was still small compared to Naruto's eating speed. He had eaten a considerable number of bowls, but his stack was only at around 18.

Seeing a thinner Naruto eating more ramen and a fatter Chouji eating less ramen was quite ironic, to say the least.

Looking up at a shocked and appalled Kurenai, Ino said with a smirk, "You were saying, sensei?"

**OMAKE 2** **(Just because I got another idea and felt like it)**

The wind blew gently, as if in a western styled film across the barren floor of the training area. In one side of the room was a black haired shinobi, a self proclaimed avenger. Sasuke Uchiha. On the other side of the room, a smirking ninja in an atrocious green spandex full body suit. Rock Lee.

The taijutsu specialist quickly jumped into a taijutsu stance known to many as the advanced stance of the Goken, an ancient and deadly hand to hand combat style.

The spectators and Lee were surprised to see Sasuke not making a stance of his own.

"What are you doing?", Lee inquired. "Are you underestimating me?"

There was no response from the former shinobi, which only aggravated Lee.

"You're making me angry!" he shouted, his features suddenly blotching a sickly green. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!"

His muscles contorted, before enlarging dangerously. The upper part of his suit ripped off, and Lee was completely green, and big. He growled, and then charged toward Sasuke. However, in his enraged state, he did not realize that he had run right past Sasuke and through the wall.

"PUNY HUMAN!", he roared. "LEE SMASH!"

His momentum carried him through the wall with a deafening crash. Lee stomped his foot, creating a small crater in the ground, and then ran around, causing destruction and chaos.

'Incredible…', a white eyed prodigy thought with a frown. 'Lee was holding this as a trump card this whole time?'

It was on that day that Konoha learned the real reason that Rock Lee was named the Green Beast of Konoha. It wasn't because of that full body suit, either. At least, not totally.

Without further ado, the next chapter starts now!

* * *

The morning air was crisp and cool, refreshing with a near perfect amount of moisture, making it not too dry nor too wet. The genin that had successfully survived the test of the sadistic proctor, Ibiki Morino, were all gathered outside of Training Grounds 44, one of the largest training grounds Konoha had to offer.

The grounds consisted of one large forest fenced in with steel fences that had security seals pasted all over.

The confidence of the genin had diminished significantly since before the first exam. Many were visibly shaken by the near terrifying experience. Over the course of an hour the previous day, they had experienced extreme confidence in themselves, which gave way to crushing despair after reading the problems, which became nervousness while they cheated, hoping they weren't caught. Then, as their confidence was rebuilding, it met another large drop into depression again as the final rules were exposed. And then, a tremendous amount of relief when they were told they had passed the exam. It was enough to unnerve almost all of the genin, save a few.

Shikamaru was lying on the ground, sleeping peacefully. Standing next to him with a rather ticked off expression, was Ino, who was fiddling with a kunai in a mixture of nervousness and aggravation. Naruto was pacing back and forth, trying to find something to kill time before their proctor of the second exam arrived, Anko Mitarashi.

"Oi, brats!", a loud voice shouted. The genin turned to see Anko Mitarashi standing and leaning against the fence that encircled the grounds. She was munching on a piece of dango, scrutinizing them.

'I didn't even sense her…', Naruto thought.

"Welcome to the second part of the examination.", she said with a devious smirk. "This part will be taking part in this training ground, known to some as the Forest of Death."

There was a slight intake of breath at that last proclamation, making Anko's eyes bright up.

"The rules are simple. Anything goes – even killing. Here are some waivers that you'll have to sign before taking the exam saying that if you die, it's not our fault. If you don't sign this, you fail."

The crazy examiner grinned as she passed out papers from the stack she had conjured out of a seal, relishing the frightened and unsure expressions on the genins' faces.

After about five minutes, most of the teams had passed in their waivers, fully completed and signed. The rest that had not, had cleared out.

"The rules of the actual exam are like this. You see these two scrolls? A heaven and an earth scroll.", she said, holding two scrolls up. One had the kanji for heaven inscribed on it, and was white. The other had the kanji for earth on it, and was brown.

"Your teams will be getting one scroll at random, either heaven or earth, each. What you basically want to do, is go into the forest and get your hands on the other scroll – earth if you started with a heaven, and heaven if you started with an earth. Alright. As I said before, anything goes. Once you have one of each, go to the center of the forest, where there will be a tower. Now, if each team would send a representative up to me to get your team's scroll…"

Ino volunteered immediately to go get their scroll, right after Sasuke had volunteered on his own team.

As she walked back, she pulled out an earth scroll out of her pocket.

"We have a heaven scroll.", she explained. Naruto looked at her incredulously.

"Heaven scroll? Take a look at it yourself!", he replied.

"Henge.", was the only word Shikamaru said to that, making Naruto nod in understanding.

"Alright.", Anko said finally, as the last of the teams got their scrolls. "I warn you not to look inside these scrolls, as being trustworthy is a trait you will need to possess to be a chuunin – you don't look inside the scrolls you are retrieving or carrying. That is classified information, and you could be executed."

"Anyways, let's get this started. Whenever you're ready, you can just head into the forest and begin.", she said simply, sitting down and pulling a bag of dango out of her pocket. She snapped her fingers, and an explosive tag hidden among the security seals detonated expertly in one of the fence's weak spots, blowing a massive hole in the barrier.

Team eight rushed towards the forest, jumped in and went as deep as they could. The trio flipped through underbrush, canopy and large trunks, dodging animals and the occasional branch. As they ran through the long grass on the forest floor, they discussed.

"I think we should avoid team nine.", Shikamaru said. "They seem very powerful. They're also _not_ rookies, meaning that they have some experience under their belt."

"Agreed.", Ino responded. "We should also avoid team seven, because of _Sasuke-kun_. He's the rookie of the year, you know."

Naruto face palmed at this blatant show of fan girl-ism, but then said, "Why don't we go for one of the foreign teams? Apart from Suna, I mean." The three of them shivered in unison at the thought of facing off against the cold, heartless eyes of Gaara of the Sand.

Team eight nodded in unison, and then surged forward more quickly, hoping to find a team that wasn't too powerful for them.

The room was full of jounin and jounin senseis, most of them watching a certain television screen that was set up in the front of the room. The screen was attached to multiple cameras scattered throughout the forest, and switched between views every so often. Right now, they were watching a battle that was taking place on a patch of land within the forest that had no trees.

Gaara was staring impassively at a team of rain shinobi, who were glaring at him back.

"I suggest you take your leave, before I _make_ you. You are not the ones I wish to face in this forest."

The leader of trio barked up some laughter at this. "You alone? Taking on three of us? Unless your team mates back there are going to help you, you're not going to win!"

Temari and Kankuro were standing in the back, just watching. Gaara could handle this.

'Underestimating Gaara?', Kankuro thought with an inward grin. 'That'll be the last thing they do.'

"Really.", was the Gaara's lone retort, before he turned slightly, pointing the gourd opening at him. There was a pop as the cork on the top disconnected, and it flew towards the rain genin at tremendous speeds. The leader barely dodged it, and so did his team mates.

"Let's do this!", the foremost rain ninja shouted, before charging at Gaara. He unsealed an umbrella from his arm, and slashed down at Gaara, who didn't move from his spot.

The shinobi smirked, expecting an easy win.

However, he underestimated the Sand shinobi. Below his feet, sand shot up at a breakneck speed, not only causing the attacker to stumble slightly as he twisted to dodge the attack, but completely absorbing the blow.

From the viewing room, the jounins were impressed.

"That is one powerful jutsu.", one of them said, whistling. And it was impressive. The ability to control individual grains of sand using pure chakra alone, without the use of hand seals, especially tons at once, would require inhumane amounts of chakra control.

"Hah! That sand won't protect you from this!", the shinobi shouted, leaping in the air and unsealing two more umbrella, which he flung at Gaara forming hand seals quickly.

The umbrellas flew around in the air, encircling Gaara, and then pointed down at him, firing a barrage of needles.

"Will that sand be able to protect him here?", Kakashi mused.

Yes, apparently so. After the sand formed a protective wall around the shinobi, the sand shot up, and a single coil flew out, weaving through the needles before wrapping around the foot of the airborne genin, who gasped in surprise.

"GAME OVER.", Gaara barked out a laugh, before he raised out a hand, and sand exploded out of his gourd, flying at the rain shinobi, who could only look at Gaara helplessly. His team mates had no time to react. Coils of sand flew rapidly, wrapping themselves tightly and spreading out until it encased the rain shinobi leader entirely except for his face, which held an extremely frightened expression and a bit of awe despite himself.

"You mentioned that you had someone you wanted to fight.", the trapped shinobi said, bowing his head as if accepting defeat.

"That is right.", Gaara said with a demonic smile on his face. "And you will live. Oh yes. But only if you tell me where he is."

The jounin senseis watching the spectacle were amazed at the skill of the Suna genin, but also slightly scared at the way he threw around death threats like an emotionless killer. They also knew he could carry out that threat.

"W-who is the one you wanted to fight?", the rain shinobi spluttered out, fearing for his own life.

Gaara looked down at the ground, before looking at the rain shinobi again, meeting his gaze and making an eerily creepy expression on his face.

"UZUMAKI NARUTO."

There was a collective gasp in the room of jounins from the Konoha senseis who recognized the name

"W-who is he?", the rain nin said questioningly.

"Wrong answer.", Gaara said, amused, and put his hand down by his side. The rain shinobi in his sand's grasp was about to sigh in relief when the sand suddenly compressed, crushing him into particles.

Blood flew everywhere, and small remnants of the slaughtered genin accompanied it.

The jounin were shocked at this horrid and brutal display. Kurenai especially, was feeling sick to her stomach. Some genin with this power wanted to fight Naruto? Why? How? And the worst part was that she could do nothing about it, as killing was a common happenstance in the Chuunin Exams and she wouldn't be able to interfere.

"Now. Does either of you know where he is?", the Suna ningen said, looking at the deceased shinobi's team mates. He didn't get a response, as they were still traumatized and in shock about the untimely demise of their comrade.

The last thing they saw was a wave of sand rushing towards them, and a maniacal expression on a Suna genin's face.

The carnage faded out from view as the television chose that moment to switch between screens. Once jounin sensei, presumably the one whose team just got slaughtered, fainted on the spot and had to be carried out of the room.

There were lots of murmurs about what they had just seen that erupted throughout the room.

"That was… unexpected.", said a shocked Kakashi Hatake, who had his orange perverted book held in his hand, forgotten with such a strange battle on screen.

"Agreed. How does he know Naruto though?", Kurenai mused.

"This could mean trouble.", Asuma noted, rubbing his beard. "I don't think any of the genin could take him down. I myself could _possibly_ get through that, but I severely doubt and of the rookies could find a way around such a powerful defense and offence."

"Unexpected too!", Kakashi pointed out. "Who would ever have expected sand?"

"Hey! I think I see my team on the screen!", Kurenai said suddenly, catching their attention. They turned from their short conversation to see Shikamaru, Ino and Naruto center screen, dashing through the forest.

"We've been in this damn forest for hours now!", Naruto whined. "No sign of another team yet!"

Shikamaru grumbled in agreement. "Maybe if we're lucky, we'll find one?"

Ino snorted. "With our bad luck? As if!"

The jounin watching from their room with the television noted shinobi tracking them in the background, unbeknownst to the center stage ningen.

Shadowing them while under the cover of trees somewhat, team seven was tracking team eight.

"We'll strike so fast, they won't stand a chance!", Kiba muttered to his team before drawing some kunai out of his pouch.

"Psh. Like they had a chance to begin with.", Sakura scoffed, pulling out kunai of her own.

"You'd be surprised.", Sasuke muttered under his breath, but out loud he grinned and said, "Let's get this started." He pulled out shuriken with ninja tied to them, and flung them right at the team.

Naruto heard the whizzing of something cutting the air behind him, and his eyes widened.

"Under attack!", he shouted simply. "Scatter!"

He himself jumped up, flipping over the incoming kunai. Looking down, he noted the ninja wire tied to them. Shikamaru leapt to the right, and Ino, to the left.

"Sasuke.", he said with a smirk. Twisting in mid air, he drew a kunai and slashed through the ninja wire, before landing back on the branch, team eight in one of their team formations.

The jounin were all surprised at this.

'How did Naruto see through Sasuke's ninja wire tactic so quickly? His response was so quick, it was almost as if he'd seen that move multiple times before… but he's only faced Sasuke once…?', Kakashi thought.

"GATTTTTTTTSSSSSSUGA!", a loud voice cried from behind them.

A giant spinning pair of tornados blew their way towards them, and they were forced to break apart again to avoid it.

Shikamaru landed on the ground, and formed a rat seal, extending his shadow in long vein like lines, trying to catch an opponent off guard. Helping him in his quest, Ino and Naruto threw kunai at the opponent in such a way that it pushed opponents into Shikamaru's shadow.

Sakura was not very lucky, and while artfully dodging one of Naruto's well timed kunai throws, one of her feet accidentally caught in the shadow. Suddenly feeling all her muscles halt randomly, she was helpless. Noting Sakura's position, Shikamaru walked in such a way forward that the pink haired genin stood in front of a tree while he wasn't.

He reared back his head, and swung it forward, muttering 'kai' at the same time to ensure that his head didn't get bashed in as well. Sakura's forehead crashed into the tree with a dull thump, and she crumpled into an unconscious heap.

From the viewing room, the jounin sensei couldn't help but feel impressed. Kakashi was the first to note. "That is some impressive team work they possess."

Asuma gave his 2 cents on the situation. "This is a 2 on 3 situation. I think your team has their best chances separating the squad and testing Kurenai-san's team in individual combat."

As if hearing his statement, Sasuke had already analyzed the situation and figured this out. He flung more kunai at the group, trying to find a weakness as Kiba threatened to pulverize them if they didn't pay attention.

Seeing Kurenai's squad split slightly at each volley of kunai, he smirked as he came up with a plan. Throwing another barrage of kunai, he quickly followed up with another kunai, this one having an upgraded explosive tag wrapped around the handle.

Noting this, Naruto shouted out warning, and there was a loud explosion as dust and rock flew everywhere. Amidst the confusion, Kiba and Sasuke took this time to their advantage.

As Naruto backed away from the explosion, an airborne Uchiha flew out of the smoke, throwing a powerful aerial kick. The blonde genin was caught completely by surprise and took the entire blow to the chest, spiraling backwards into a bunch of bushes and rolled out of sight.

His sensei gasped in horror. Was Naruto alright? Sasuke smirked.

"Dobe, I know you're not done yet.", was all he said before drawing a kunai and leaping after him.

Kiba went on a frontal attack on Ino and Shikamaru, who got into defensive positions to block the attack, the latter's brain whirring quickly. However, they did not note that Akamaru was not with Kiba, and was, in actually, sneaking up on them from behind…

As Sasuke followed to where Naruto was, he was disappointed to see him sprawled on the ground, unconscious.

"I kind of expected a better fight from you.", he admitted, when his senses suddenly became alert. He felt some kind of disturbance in the air… almost like…

He jumped up suddenly to avoid a handful of kunai being thrown at him from behind. Taking this advantage, the 'unconscious' Naruto opened his eyes and jumped up with a kunai, swinging at Sasuke's torso. Blocking the swipe with a kunai of his own, the Uchiha found himself on the defensive, as Naruto continued the onslaught.

The blonde male of team seven was definitely keeping on the pressure well. He would strike, and while he prepared for the next charge, multiple clones would shower Sasuke in kunai, forcing him to constantly be on the move while Naruto waited.

As this kept going, Sasuke started to get frustrated.

'He knows my style of fighting too well.', he thought with a grimace. 'I need space and time to execute my katas.'

The duck haired Uchiha decided to surprise the blonde genin by breaking his style and throwing an awkward punch, which grazed Naruto's chin, forcing his aggressor back temporarily, and gave him some space. The clones jumped out, getting ready to throw more kunai, when Sasuke closed his eyes and flipped upwards, drawing 8 kunai in his hands, 4 in each hand.

Time seemed to go in slow motion as the clones watched Sasuke flip through the air, eyes closed and kunai glimmering between his fingers.

He suddenly outstretched his hands, flinging all the kunai in different directions. There was the distinctive sound of eight clones popping, and then Sasuke gracefully landed.

"Hn.", he said with a smirk. "How'd you like that?"

"I've seen better.", Naruto said with a grin, causing Sasuke to scowl and charge forward, and they engaged in a one on one taijutsu duel.

"What is this?", Kakashi and Kurenai asked at the same time as they watched the battle between Naruto and Sasuke.

"Sasuke seems to know Naruto's abilities a bit too well.", Kurenai said out loud with a frown, looking at Kakashi suspiciously. Kakashi ignored her suspicious look, continuing to read his book.

While seemingly tuning out everything in favor of the book, his mind was whirring furiously.

'Sasuke's only seen Naruto's style once… Likewise, Naruto has only seen Sasuke's style from that duel they had a while back… what is going on here?'

"Judging by the battle we are seeing here,", one of the jounin sensei from the Sand said, "they seem to have fought each other many, many times, to have created taijutsu styles just to counter the other's."

"Or", another jounin brought up with a grin, "they could just be inherent quick thinking geniuses. Which I doubt, judging by blondie over there." He pointed at Naruto, who was boisterously shouting out trash talk.

There was a chuckle throughout the room.

Sasuke hopped up slightly, throwing another aerial kick. Instead of blocking, Naruto fluidly dodged and threw a punch at Sasuke's body that was still going through with the attack. The latter noticed this and had anticipated this.

"Fell into my trap!", Sasuke said gleefully, taking his hand and latching onto the wrist of the hand that Naruto was using to throw a punch.

Sasuke yanked back, causing Naruto to stumble forward, and followed up with a quick chop to the neck, and there was a rather large explosion of smoke as the 'Naruto' he was fighting dispelled.

"Ne?", he said in shock. "I could have sworn that was the original, because it had more chakra than the others…"

"It was you that fell into my trap.", came Naruto's voice from behind. Sasuke spun around to see Naruto throwing kunai from his vantage point, forcing Sasuke back on the defensive.

"I added more chakra to one of the clones to make you think that it was the original. Cool, huh."

The Uchiha smirked. "Not bad, dobe."

He started forming hand seals in a quick succession, which Naruto recognized immediately as one of the signature Uchiha fire techniques.

He reflexively created 12 clones around him. When Sasuke breathed in deeply and exhaled sharply, shooting out an array of fire balls, Naruto send his clones at the fire balls, 1 clone at each fireball. The sacrifices of Naruto's clones caused the fireballs to explode prematurely, much to the chagrin of Kakashi.

"How did Naruto know what move Sasuke was going to do?", Kakashi wondered, growling a bit with frustration. "And how did he know that 12 fireballs was Sasuke's limit?"

"It seems they have been keeping something from us.", Kurenai noted, also slightly frustrated at this lack of knowledge.

Naruto jumped up, reached into his kunai pouch and drew some strangely shaped kunai. He flung them wildly at Sasuke, some of them seemingly going off mark.

"This technique of Naruto's will definitely land a hit.", Kurenai said with a smirk.

"Technique? He's throwing kunai!", Kakashi commented.

The point of this technique was that the kunai were, in actuality, henged kage bunshin. Any ordinary shinobi would have simply dodged the technique, and then the bunshin would take them by surprise. But not Sasuke Uchiha, who had seen this technique multiple times in their secret sparring times.

Instead of dodging them, he twirled a kunai and plunged it into the shuriken as they approached, surprising everyone in the room of jounin senseis.

They watched as the henged bunshin dropped the henge as they were struck, and then exploded into billows of smoke.

"I see.", Kakashi said with an eye smile, his lone visible eye crinkling into an upside down U. "Well, it seems Sasuke has seen through that attack."

Kurenai growled. That was one of Naruto's signature moves! He hadn't used that against anyone outside of sparring with his team mates yet! What was going on?

Shikamaru wasn't faring so well. Akamaru had snuck up on them, hitting Ino squarely on the back with a Gatsuuga and causing her to quickly lose consciousness. He flipped backwards, avoiding a slash of a claw from Kiba.

His highly advanced brain was coming up with plan after plan and analyzing the situation as he dodged attack after attack.

"What's wrong?", Kiba shouted out with a grin as Shikamaru narrowly dodged another lunge from Akamaru. "Need the girl to fight for you?"

Kiba was starting to push Shikamaru into a corner with his and Akamaru's team effort. The only thing was, Kiba and Akamaru thought Shikamaru didn't know this.

The pineapple haired boy forced down a victorious smirk as he jumped back and landed, feeling behind him and realizing that he was cornered. "Cornered". All according to plan.

He turned around swiftly, acting as if he was looking for an escape when he formed a rat seal with his hands and watched as his shadow was bolstered by the shade of the trees. Yep, all according to plan.

'Now that just leaves Sasuke.', he thought with a sigh, muttering about troublesome things as he forced Kiba and Akamaru to smash their heads against the ground through his shadow possession technique.

The fight between Naruto and Sasuke was still relatively equal. Naruto would force Sasuke onto the defensive, but Sasuke would find a way to force Naruto back onto the defensive and the cycle would continue. How much longer was this going to continue?

Naruto put his hands up to block a strong roundhouse kick from Sasuke, leaning back with the momentum before twirling around and shoving a fist forwards. Unfortunately for him, the Uchiha crouched under the foot and spun around, his foot connecting with Naruto's shin, causing the latter to stumble awkwardly.

The blonde genin inwardly groaned. A mistake like that would not go unnoticed or unpunished by Sasuke's keen eyes. The Uchiha grinned, seeing this blatant opening, and was about to throw a follow up kick, when there was a whistling noise as something flew through the air.

A kunai embedded itself into the trunk between Sasuke and Naruto, hissing dangerously as an explosive tag tied to the end flared ominously. This random action forced both genin to stop their fight to deal with the threat. Their eyes opened wide.

"What the-…", was all Naruto could get out, before a large explosion overtook the area with a deafening bang.

* * *

**Reviewing is a great thing to do! Remember: If you review, I'll write omakes xD.**

**By the way, I've been thinking of a new story line to try out. We'll see, won't we?**


	22. Tough Competition pt 1

**AUTHORS NOTE:** Holy skhjfakfhakdfj you guys lots of sorry's all around for not updating in like 192386129360123612097312 years. Omg school is so time consuming. ….. Blegh. School is still raging on hard and there'll be lots of shit bogging me down as this one winds to a close as well, but I tried to find as much time as I could to write at least one chapter.

This is the first part to a 2 part chapter that will be Chapter 22.

Without further ado, Part 1 of Chapter 22!

**Chapter 22: Tough Competition**

* * *

His vision was filled with black.

There was nothing except darkness.

Nothing.

He couldn't sense anything. The only feeling he could detect was in his ears, and it was in the form of a shrill ringing that Naruto would give anything to get rid of. God was it annoying.

As the feeling returned to his body, he became steadily aware that he was lying on the ground. Judging by the grass and rocks he could feel digging into his back, he assumed that he was outside. Naruto couldn't, however, for the life of him remember why he was in such a position. Coming with his awakening sense of touch was a stiffness that caused the blonde genin to emit a pained groan from his lips.

Everything in front of him was a giant potpourri of blurry colors mixed together in a mixture of pure confusion. As his eyes opened more and he became more awake, Naruto's vision began to clear, and his senses began to return.

There was a slight ache on his back from falling unpleasantly. He clambered to his feet, shaking off the remains of the daze that had gripped him earlier. Seeing a large patch of black, scorched grass not too far away reminded him of the explosive tag that had knocked him unconscious. Realizing that he was most probably under attack, he quickly drew a kunai and steadied himself into a guard position.

His shinobi senses having returned, he could faintly make out the clangs typical of a shinobi confrontation in the distance. Deciding it was in his best interest to figure out what was going on, he channeled chakra to his feet like Kurenai-sensei had taught him, and shot up the trunk of a nearby tree, before making a large chakra-enhanced leap in the general direction of the sounds he had heard.

He stopped after passing a couple of large trees, and landed in a clearing. There was a break in the leaf covering above given by the trees so that sunlight filtered through and illuminated partially the area. Looking up, he saw Sasuke on a thick tree branch, bent over and leaning against the trunk, and panting. He was shaking slightly, a kunai gripped tightly in his right hand and his left hand on the tree to stabilize his balance. He looked down, seeing Naruto, and grinned slightly, before quickly changing to a very serious expression and jumping off the branch just in time as it exploded in a loud bang, splinters of wood flying all over the place.

The duck-haired Uchiha landed gracefully on the ground next to Naruto as a pale shinobi landed on the branch above Sasuke's previous spot. He wore a white-gray flowing robe with a large straw and bamboo hat that masked his hair and eyes as he looked down upon his opponents. A purple rope sash was tied tightly around his waist.

They couldn't see the majority of his face, but he licked his lips, an action that greatly disturbed the two Konoha genin. Sasuke and Naruto made eye contact, and wordless communication passed between them. This foe was strong. They would team up together just this once just to take him out.

The grass shinobi, as they deduced from the designs upon his identifying village headband, leapt from his perch on the branch and landed on the ground, meters in front of them. He shifted his head upwards in order to meet their gazes. His bamboo hat moved with the motion of the head, revealing eyes full of malice. These eyes weren't those of a determined genin ready to do whatever it takes to gain Sasuke and Naruto's scrolls. They were eyes of hate and battle hardened, those of a cold-blooded killer.

Sasuke took a step backwards in surprise.

"_Nii-san!", an anguished young child screamed in fury and disbelief. His older brother, who turned around in surprise with his blade drawn, relaxed slightly at who he saw. A child Sasuke, hellbent on revenge after the view of his mom and dad being slaughtered as well as the rest of his clan, threw a handful of shuriken at the traitor._

_Itachi easily jumped over the assault, landing in front of his brother. They made eye contact. Sasuke did not see the soft eyes that he came to know of his brother throughout their growing up together, but cold, icy eyes he did not recognize._

Something was off.

The grass genin raised an eyebrow at the newcomer, before his mouth curved into a twisted, sinister smile. "Naruto Uzumaki. I'd never expect to see you here." The grass nin's voice was a cross between normal and a snake's hiss.

How did he know his name?

Naruto took a step back in surprise. Why did the strange genin know his name? It was unnerving. His fist clenched tightly around the kunai he held in his grasp, before flinging it at the enemy nin, who bent back and let the projectile sail over him.

"I see.", the grass ninja continued, his smile widening. "I was going to give you the option to run, but it seems you have chosen the more painful option."

"With these unfortunate circumstances", the grass genin noted, "I must kill you. Perhaps if it were another time and place you could have been my target. However, it is Sasuke-kun I want."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at Sasuke, who shuddered and furrowed his brow before releasing a Katon: Fireball Jutsu at the enemy, who launched himself to the side easily. The blonde launched himself after the enemy, not giving him a chance to recover. Swinging a handful of ninja stars at the nin, he was surprised when the ninja took all the shurikens straight on without attempting to dodge.

He was further surprised when the ninja suddenly turned to mud and dirt and melted into the ground before their eyes. Naruto landed, drawing another kunai to be safe.

"Naruto!", Sasuke shouted. Naruto spun around to see a foot sticking out of a tree trunk and connecting with a painful snap with his midsection. He was flung backwards, and he saw the rest of the genin's body come out of the tree. He gave a pained grunt as he slid across the ground.

Sasuke leapt up, sucking in air, before twirling and releasing his signature Phoenix Flower Jutsu at the genin, who responded by doing a chakra enhanced leap upwards and out of the way. He smirked.

"Good, very good Sasuke.", the genin said to which Sasuke huffed, growling out, "What is this – some kind of stupid joke to you?", and firing another Fireball Jutsu.

The Grass ninja sidestepped the fireball, smirking at the destruction it caused to the unfortunate tree behind him. He twirled a kunai out of his pouch and stabbed an airborne Naruto in the throat, causing it to poof and dispel away. He twirled past another fireball, all the while gracefully slashing through synchronized Naruto clones with the kunai in hand.

"Who are you?", Sasuke shouted angrily, firing more fire jutsus at the opponent who just wouldn't stay still.

The grass genin suddenly paused fighting, leaping backwards, landing on an overgrown branch and started grinning hugely. He pointed himself, proclaiming, "I am Orochimaru, one of the Legendary Konoha Sannin." Sasuke and Naruto watched in horror as the face of the grass nin literally began to melt off, revealing an even more sinister adult face than the first.

"I don't care who you are!", Naruto exclaimed suddenly, charging forward while throwing a line of kunai. The sannin smiled at the effort, ducking under the kunai and then pulling back his sleeve on his right arm, revealing a complicated painted on tattoo. Orochimaru quickly bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood, and then wiped droplets onto the tattoo before making hand seals and then becoming completely enveloped in smoke.

There was a giant bang as a pillar of smoke erupted from where Orochimaru stood, completely masking him. When the smoke cleared, a giant deadly looking serpent was present, with the sannin standing on his summon's head looking smug.

"This is the end.", Orochimaru said in a rather bored fashion, before throwing a kunai in between Naruto and Sasuke. They didn't have to even turn to hear the sizzle and crackle of an explosive tag that was lit, and they jumped in opposite directions away from the ticking bomb. Orochimaru leapt off the snake's head in the direction that Sasuke took, while the snake itself turned to take care of Naruto.

'Shit. I'm separated.' Sasuke realized as he dodged explosion tag equipped kunai one after another. The sannin was smart. He was keeping Sasuke from rejoining with Naruto with well-placed explosions. Seeing that Orochimaru was not on his snake, he could take a good guess as to what Naruto was up against at the moment. 'Naruto, be safe.' He didn't have much more time to ponder how Naruto was faring as he leapt up from the ground to clasp onto the bottom of a branch right as a wave of kunai punctured deep into the ground where he was just standing.

* * *

**Somewhere in the center of the forest, inside the Tower…**

Shortly after the explosion took place, the screen had fizzed out from showing the battle between the two Konoha teams. The image was replaced then with two relatively weaker teams from smaller villages battling it out.

"Hmph.", Kurenai and Kakashi both grunted, refusing to speak to each other. They both, in their minds, thought the other had spied on their students in order to gather information on how they fought.

"Now, now, we're all friends here…", Asuma said lightly, trying to dissolve the thick tension that had erupted, but cold glares from both of the jounin-senseis in question was enough to shut him up.

* * *

For a damn large snake, it sure was damn fast. Naruto cursed as he was forced to leap to another tree right as the serpent lunged forward, its jaws and terribly sharp fangs smashing through the trunk of his previous spot as if the tree was made out of the flimsiest paper in the world. He threw explosion tag kunais at the snake, watching as they detonated. To his dismay, there was no visible effect on the snake.

As he continued to bounce between trees, he was now audibly swearing. "Damn this! How am I supposed to kill this snake? I can't break through the skin!"

And that's when he got inspiration for an idea so strange that he prayed it would work. He grinned, anticipating the next lunge of the snake. As it opened its jaws to clamp down on the branch he was standing on, instead of jumping away to another branch, he leapt forward and into the serpent's mouth, and jammed himself down its throat before it could bite him.

Inside the serpent's body it was damp and uncomfortably alive. The walls pulsed as the snake's body desperately tried to find a way to digest its sudden new meal. Sighing in relief as he realized that the first part of his plan was successful, Naruto wasted no time in creating a shadow clone next to him in the stomach of the snake.

From the outside, the snake felt a strange gathering of chakra inside of it, but couldn't for the life of it figure out why. Suddenly its eyes jolted wide open, its jaw shooting open, and it keeled over and slammed on the ground, dead. On the interior, a Rasengan-sized hole had been made through its stomach and internal organs.

The entire snake dissipated in a cloud of smoke, and Naruto was left on the ground with his shadow clone, panting for breath. He was covered in disgusting saliva and he had a disgusting stench on him, but the important part was that he had survived the ordeal.

"Boss.", the shadow clone said in a miffed manner, trying desperately to wipe some of the stuff off of his clothes. "Next time come up with a better plan. Yeech."

Naruto noted a stream nearby by hearing running water, but knew that helping Sasuke with the main problem was a higher priority. He sped off back.

"Sasuke, you had better still be alive."

* * *

This concludes only part one of Chapter 22! Stay tuned and the next part will be updated shortly.

You'll be able to see the battle between Sasuke and Naruto and Orochimaru! Dun nun nunnn…

(sorry for the wait you guys, R&R :P)


End file.
